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ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance

The efficacy of chemotherapy is one of the main challenges in cancer treatment and one of the major obstacles to overcome in achieving lasting remission and a definitive cure in patients with cancer is the emergence of cancer resistance. Indeed, drug resistance is ultimately accountable for poor tre...

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Autores principales: Begicevic, Romana-Rea, Falasca, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5713331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29117122
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18112362
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author Begicevic, Romana-Rea
Falasca, Marco
author_facet Begicevic, Romana-Rea
Falasca, Marco
author_sort Begicevic, Romana-Rea
collection PubMed
description The efficacy of chemotherapy is one of the main challenges in cancer treatment and one of the major obstacles to overcome in achieving lasting remission and a definitive cure in patients with cancer is the emergence of cancer resistance. Indeed, drug resistance is ultimately accountable for poor treatment outcomes and tumour relapse. There are various molecular mechanisms involved in multidrug resistance, such as the change in the activity of membrane transporters primarily belonging to the ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter family. In addition, it has been proposed that this common feature could be attributed to a subpopulation of slow-cycling cancer stem cells (CSCs), endowed with enhanced tumorigenic potential and multidrug resistance. CSCs are characterized by the overexpression of specific surface markers that vary in different cancer cell types. Overexpression of ABC transporters has been reported in several cancers and more predominantly in CSCs. While the major focus on the role played by ABC transporters in cancer is polarized by their involvement in chemoresistance, emerging evidence supports a more active role of these proteins, in which they release specific bioactive molecules in the extracellular milieu. This review will outline our current understanding of the role played by ABC transporters in CSCs, how their expression is regulated and how they support the malignant metabolic phenotype. To summarize, we suggest that the increased expression of ABC transporters in CSCs may have precise functional roles and provide the opportunity to target, particularly these cells, by using specific ABC transporter inhibitors.
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spelling pubmed-57133312017-12-07 ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance Begicevic, Romana-Rea Falasca, Marco Int J Mol Sci Review The efficacy of chemotherapy is one of the main challenges in cancer treatment and one of the major obstacles to overcome in achieving lasting remission and a definitive cure in patients with cancer is the emergence of cancer resistance. Indeed, drug resistance is ultimately accountable for poor treatment outcomes and tumour relapse. There are various molecular mechanisms involved in multidrug resistance, such as the change in the activity of membrane transporters primarily belonging to the ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter family. In addition, it has been proposed that this common feature could be attributed to a subpopulation of slow-cycling cancer stem cells (CSCs), endowed with enhanced tumorigenic potential and multidrug resistance. CSCs are characterized by the overexpression of specific surface markers that vary in different cancer cell types. Overexpression of ABC transporters has been reported in several cancers and more predominantly in CSCs. While the major focus on the role played by ABC transporters in cancer is polarized by their involvement in chemoresistance, emerging evidence supports a more active role of these proteins, in which they release specific bioactive molecules in the extracellular milieu. This review will outline our current understanding of the role played by ABC transporters in CSCs, how their expression is regulated and how they support the malignant metabolic phenotype. To summarize, we suggest that the increased expression of ABC transporters in CSCs may have precise functional roles and provide the opportunity to target, particularly these cells, by using specific ABC transporter inhibitors. MDPI 2017-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5713331/ /pubmed/29117122 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18112362 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Begicevic, Romana-Rea
Falasca, Marco
ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title_full ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title_fullStr ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title_full_unstemmed ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title_short ABC Transporters in Cancer Stem Cells: Beyond Chemoresistance
title_sort abc transporters in cancer stem cells: beyond chemoresistance
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5713331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29117122
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms18112362
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