Is resistance useless? Multidrug resistance and collateral sensitivity.

ABSTRACT: When cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapeutics, it is frequently conferred by the ATP-dependent efflux pump P-glycoprotein (MDR1, P-gp, ABCB1). P-gp can efflux a wide range of cancer drugs; its expression confers cross-resistance, termed "multidrug resistance" (MDR), to a wide range of drugs. Strategies to overcome this resistance have been actively sought for more than 30 years, yet clinical solutions do not exist. A less understood aspect of MDR is the hypersensitivity of resistant cancer cells to other drugs, a phenomenon known as "collateral sensitivity" (CS). This review highlights the extent of this effect for the first time, and discusses hypotheses (e.g. generation of reactive oxygen species) to account for the underlying generality of this phenomenon, and proposes explo

SUBMITTER: Hall MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2774243 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature