Therapeutic resistance in lung cancer

Abstract

Despite considerable progress over the last 25 years in the systemic therapy of lung cancer, intrinsic and acquired resistance to chemotherapeutic agents and radiation remains a vexing problem. The number of mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in lung cancer has expanded considerably over the past three decades, and the crucial role of stress resistance pathways is increasingly recognised as a cause of intrinsic and acquired chemo- and radiotherapy resistance. This paper reviews recent evidence for stress defence proteins, particularly RALBP1/RLIP76, in mediating intrinsic and acquired chemotherapy and radiation resistance in human lung cancer.

Keywords::

• drug resistance
• glutathione conjugates
• lung cancer
• radiation
• RALBP1
• RLIP76
• transport

Acknowledgements

Supported in part by NIH grants CA-77495 and CA-104661 (SA) and Cancer Research Foundation of North Texas (SA and SS). The authors thank S Passy and C Larson, Biology Department, University of Texas at Arlington for helping and providing Confocal Laser Microscope and LSM Image Analysis software, supported by the National Science Foundation grant 0215852.