Starvation, detoxification, and multidrug resistance in cancer therapy.

ABSTRACT: The selection of chemotherapy drugs is based on the cytotoxicity to specific tumor cell types and the relatively low toxicity to normal cells and tissues. However, the toxicity to normal cells poses a major clinical challenge, particularly when malignant cells have acquired resistance to chemotherapy. This drug resistance of cancer cells results from multiple factors including individual variation, genetic heterogeneity within a tumor, and cellular evolution. Much progress in the understanding of tumor cell resistance has been made in the past 35 years, owing to milestone discoveries such as the identification and characterization of ABC transporters. Nonetheless, the complexity of the genetic and epigenetic rewiring of cancer cells makes drug resistance an equally complex phenomenon that

SUBMITTER: Lee C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3573885 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature