Kartner N, Ling V
University of Toronto.
Sci Am. 1989 Mar;260(3):44-51. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0389-44.
Chemotherapy often fails because a tumor develops resistance to an array of different drugs. A single glycoprotein turns out to be responsible: it proliferates in some cells and pumps out the drugs. Now that the protein pump has been identified it may be possible to interfere with its action or to make it the target for drugs that destroy the cancer cell.
化疗常常失败,因为肿瘤会对一系列不同药物产生耐药性。结果发现,一种单一的糖蛋白对此负责:它在某些细胞中增殖并排出药物。既然已经识别出这种蛋白质泵,就有可能干扰其作用,或者使其成为破坏癌细胞的药物的靶点。