Cancer, Lysosomes, and Treatment
Cancer is one of the most leading causes of death across the world. Several therapies exist to fight cancer. They include surgery, radiation therapy, stem cell transplant, targeted therapy, hormone therapy, and immunotherapy. One common therapy many chose is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is cancer treatment using one or more anti-cancer medications that are given as a standardized regimen. There are several types of chemotherapy medications. Alkylating agents attack a cell’s DNA directly to keep the cell from reproducing. Antimetabolites substitute themselves as RNA and DNA building blocks which interferes with cell’s S phase. Anti-tumor antibiotics alter a cancer cell’s DNA inhibiting growth. Topoisomerase inhibitors …show more content…
They are targets for chemotherapeutics involved with cancer which suppress the mitotic spindles causing mitotic arrest and eventually cell death. In multiple cancers, changes in microtubule stability, isotype expression, and post-translational modifications have been reported. These changes are associated with resistance to chemotherapy and poor prognosis in solid and hematological cancers. Recent research shows that tubulin proteins play a role in cellular stress responses, thus conferring survival advantage to cancer cells.8 Paclitaxel enhances the polymerization of tubulin and also interacts with the proteins directly offering structural support to hinder cold and calcium induced depolymerization. Paclitaxel is unique because it contains a binding site specifically for a microtubule polymer as an anti-cancer agent. Paclitaxel has the ability to polymerize tubulin in the absence of cofactors such as guanosine triphosphate. The microtubule cytoskeleton reacts to paclitaxel by reorganizing, thus allowing stable bundles of microtubules to form. Paclitaxel mitotically arrests cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle resulting in the cell being unable to form a normal mitotic spindle
Cancer is one of the most leading causes of death across the world. Several therapies exist to fight cancer. They include surgery, radiation therapy, stem cell transplant, targeted therapy, hormone therapy, and immunotherapy. One common therapy many chose is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is cancer treatment using one or more anti-cancer medications that are given as a standardized regimen. There are several types of chemotherapy medications. Alkylating agents attack a cell’s DNA directly to keep the cell from reproducing. Antimetabolites substitute themselves as RNA and DNA building blocks which interferes with cell’s S phase. Anti-tumor antibiotics alter a cancer cell’s DNA inhibiting growth. Topoisomerase inhibitors …show more content…
They are targets for chemotherapeutics involved with cancer which suppress the mitotic spindles causing mitotic arrest and eventually cell death. In multiple cancers, changes in microtubule stability, isotype expression, and post-translational modifications have been reported. These changes are associated with resistance to chemotherapy and poor prognosis in solid and hematological cancers. Recent research shows that tubulin proteins play a role in cellular stress responses, thus conferring survival advantage to cancer cells.8 Paclitaxel enhances the polymerization of tubulin and also interacts with the proteins directly offering structural support to hinder cold and calcium induced depolymerization. Paclitaxel is unique because it contains a binding site specifically for a microtubule polymer as an anti-cancer agent. Paclitaxel has the ability to polymerize tubulin in the absence of cofactors such as guanosine triphosphate. The microtubule cytoskeleton reacts to paclitaxel by reorganizing, thus allowing stable bundles of microtubules to form. Paclitaxel mitotically arrests cells in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle resulting in the cell being unable to form a normal mitotic spindle