Onkológia 1/2012

ABC transporters: multidrug resistance and different types of human diseases

The ABC transporters are responsible for uni-directional efflux of many compounds of various size and structure from cell to extracellular space. There are many antineoplastic drugs among the substrates of ABC transporters. Pathological overexpression of ABC transporters results in the increased occurrence of ABC transporters on the cytoplasmic membrane and in turn in increased efflux of antineoplastics, which ultimately results in the development of drug resistance in the cancer cells. Down-regulation or mutations lead to the development of different types of diseases in humans. So far, the connection with drug resistance was confirmed for 9 of the known ABC transporters. This underlines the importance of analyzing relationships between the antineoplastic drug (alone or in combination with another drugs) and the pathological overexpression of ABC transporter genes.

Keywords: ABC transporters, cancer, resistance to chemotherapy, multidrug resistance.