Identification of molecular targets asscociated with resistance to antitumor drugs Carboplatin and Rebeccamycin analogues using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model cell

Abstract

There is great interest from pharmaceutical companies in finding an appropriate treatment for patients with cancer which presented resistance to drugs commonly used to fight the cancer. Therefore, it is necessary to search for new genetic markers that are associated with the patient's predisposition to react differently than expected to the drug effect. For this purpose, several studies have been developed, based in anticancer drugs. Among these medicines, we may highlight the antitumor drug rebeccamycin that has the ability to inhibit the catalytic action of topoisomerases I and II, and the chemotherapeutic agents platinum-based, such as carboplatin, cisplatin and oxaliplatin, which act by eliminating cancer cells through the formation of adducts with purine bases of DNA. Thus, this project has the prospect of finding yeast mutants resistant to carboplatin and rebeccamycin analogues. These mutants will be exposed to different concentrations of these drugs and after the identification of resistant phenotypes, there will be the identification and molecular characterization of genes involved in the process. This proposal aims to find the genes responsible for resistance to these antitumor drugs, making it possible to develop a more individualized therapy for each patient, giving a better life expectancy. (AU)