Breast Cancer Resistance Protein and P-Glycoprotein in Brain Cancer: Two Gatekeepers Team Up
Brain cancer is a devastating disease. Despite extensive research, treatment of brain tumors has been largely ineffective and the diagnosis of brain cancer remains uniformly fatal. Failure of brain cancer treatment may be in part due to limitations in drug delivery, influenced by the
ABC drug efflux transporters P-gp and BCRP at the blood-brain and blood-tumor barriers, in brain tumor cells, as well as in brain tumor stem-like cells. P-gp and BCRP limit various anti-cancer drugs from entering the brain and tumor tissues, thus rendering chemotherapy ineffective. To overcome
this obstacle, two strategies - targeting transporter regulation and direct transporter inhibition - have been proposed. In this review, we focus on these strategies. We first introduce the latest findings on signaling pathways that could potentially be targeted to down-regulate P-gp and BCRP
expression and/or transport activity. We then highlight in detail the new paradigm of P-gp and BCRP working as a “cooperative team of gatekeepers” at the blood-brain barrier, discuss its ramifications for brain cancer therapy, and summarize the latest findings on dual P-gp/BCRP
inhibitors. Finally, we provide a brief summary with conclusions and outline the perspectives for future research endeavors in this field.
Keywords: BCRP; Chemotherapeutics; P-gp; anti-cancer drugs; blood-brain barrier; brain cancer; glioblastoma; inhibition; multidrug resistance; regulation
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 September 2011
- Current Pharmaceutical Design publishes timely in-depth reviews covering all aspects of current research in rational drug design. Each issue is devoted to a single major therapeutic area. A Guest Editor who is an acknowledged authority in a therapeutic field has solicits for each issue comprehensive and timely reviews from leading researchers in the pharmaceutical industry and academia.
Each thematic issue of Current Pharmaceutical Design covers all subject areas of major importance to modern drug design, including: medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, drug targets and disease mechanism. - Editorial Board
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