Evolution of tumor cells during AsiDNA treatment results in energy exhaustion, decrease in responsiveness to signal, and higher sensitivity to the drug.

ABSTRACT: It is increasingly suggested that ecological and evolutionary sciences could inspire novel therapies against cancer but medical evidence of this remains scarce at the moment. The Achilles heel of conventional and targeted anticancer treatments is intrinsic or acquired resistance following Darwinian selection; that is, treatment toxicity places the surviving cells under intense evolutionary selective pressure to develop resistance. Here, we review a set of data that demonstrate that Darwinian principles derived from the "smoke detector" principle can instead drive the evolution of malignant cells toward a different trajectory. Specifically, long-term exposure of cancer cells to a strong alarm signal, generated by the DNA repair inhibitor AsiDNA, induces a stable new state characterized by a

SUBMITTER: Girard PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7428804 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature