Pump Action Shut Down To Break Breast Cancer Cells' Drug Resistance

• Pump Action Shut Down To Break Breast Cancer Cells' Drug Resistance

  Posted: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:00:00 PDT

  Breast cancer cells that mutate to resist drug treatment survive by establishing tiny pumps on their surface that reject the drugs as they penetrate the cell membrane - making the cancer insensitive to chemotherapy drugs even after repeated use. Researchers have found a new way to break that resistance and shut off the pumps by genetically altering those breast cancer cells to forcibly activate a heat-shock protein called Hsp27. This protein regulates several others, including the protein that sets up the pumps that turn away the chemotherapeutics...