A synthetic lethal screen identifies the Vitamin D receptor as a novel gemcitabine sensitizer in pancreatic cancer cells.

ABSTRACT: Overcoming chemoresistance of pancreatic cancer (PCa) cells should significantly extend patient survival. The current treatment modalities rely on a variety of DNA damaging agents including gemcitabine, FOLFIRINOX, and Abraxane that activate cell cycle checkpoints, which allows cells to survive these drug treaments. Indeed, these treatment regimens have only extended patient survival by a few months. The complex microenvironment of PCa tumors has been shown to complicate drug delivery thus decreasing the sensitivity of PCa tumors to chemotherapy. In this study, a genome-wide siRNA library was used to conduct a synthetic lethal screen of Panc1 cells that was treated with gemcitabine. A sublethal dose (50 nM) of the drug was used to model situations of limiting drug availability to PCa tumor

SUBMITTER: Bhattacharjee V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4615005 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature