MULTIDRUG-RESISTANCE - AN EMERGING THREAT

Multidrug resistance (MDR) has been the main cause of failure of cance r chemotherapy where it is defined as the tendency of tumour cells to exhibit simultaneous resistance to unrelated chemotherapeutic agents, MDR has been mainly associated with the overexpression of an ATP bindi ng cassette (ABC) protein, P-glycoprotein, Research in the past decade has revealed that the MDR phenomenon is not restricted to mammalian c ells but rather occurs throughout the evolutionary scale, Thus over hu ndred ABC proteins have been characterized in mammals, bacteria and ye ast, This review briefly describes the advancement in this field and i dentifies the problems which have emerged due to MDR.