Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, USA.
Integr Biol (Camb). 2011 May;3(5):529-39. doi: 10.1039/c0ib00142b. Epub 2011 Mar 8.
The ability of cancer cells to become resistant to chemotherapeutic agents is a major challenge for the treatment of malignant tumors. Several strategies have emerged to attempt to inhibit chemoresistance, but the fact remains that resistance is a problem for every effective anticancer drug. The first part of this review will focus on the mechanisms of chemoresistance. It is important to understand the environmental cues, transport limitations and the cellular signaling pathways associated with chemoresistance before we can hope to effectively combat it. The second part of this review focuses on the work that needs to be done moving forward. Specifically, this section focuses on the necessity of translational research and interdisciplinary directives. It is critical that the expertise of oncologists, biologists, and engineers be brought together to attempt to tackle the problem. This discussion is from an engineering perspective, as the dialogue between engineers and other cancer researchers is the most challenging due to non-overlapping background knowledge. Chemoresistance is a complex and devastating process, meaning that we urgently need sophisticated methods to study the process of how cells become resistant.
癌细胞对化疗药物产生耐药性的能力是恶性肿瘤治疗的主要挑战。已经出现了几种策略来试图抑制耐药性，但事实上，每一种有效的抗癌药物都存在耐药性的问题。本综述的第一部分将重点介绍耐药性的机制。在我们能够有效地对抗耐药性之前，了解与耐药性相关的环境线索、转运限制和细胞信号通路是很重要的。本综述的第二部分重点介绍了未来需要做的工作。具体来说，这一节侧重于转化研究和跨学科指令的必要性。至关重要的是，将肿瘤学家、生物学家和工程师的专业知识汇集在一起，以试图解决这个问题。这是从工程学的角度来讨论的，因为工程师与其他癌症研究人员之间的对话是最具挑战性的，因为他们的背景知识并不重叠。耐药性是一个复杂和破坏性的过程，这意味着我们迫切需要复杂的方法来研究细胞耐药性的过程。
