Elliott Aaron, Adams Jerry, Al-Hajj Muhammad
GlaxoSmithKline R&D, Oncology Unit, 1250 South Collegeville Road, Collegeville, PA 19426, USA.
IDrugs. 2010 Sep;13(9):632-5.
Chemotherapy is generally effective as a non-targeted therapy in killing the majority of cells in a tumor; however, a small population of residual cells that are intrinsically resistant to such agents persist after chemotherapy, ultimately resulting in patient relapse. There is evidence that these cells within resistant tumors are cancer stem cells. A common mechanism of multidrug resistance used by residual tumor cells involves the expression of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. Understanding the anticancer drug transport properties of these transporters, as well as their physiological functions, in addition to improved efforts to discover and characterize selective inhibitors, will lead to more effective therapeutics for oncology.
化疗作为一种非靶向治疗方法，通常能有效杀死肿瘤中的大多数细胞；然而，一小部分对这类药物具有内在抗性的残留细胞在化疗后依然存在，最终导致患者复发。有证据表明，耐药肿瘤中的这些细胞是癌症干细胞。残留肿瘤细胞产生多药耐药的常见机制涉及ATP结合盒（ABC）转运蛋白的表达。除了加大努力发现和鉴定选择性抑制剂外，了解这些转运蛋白的抗癌药物转运特性及其生理功能，将有助于开发出更有效的肿瘤治疗方法。
