Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University Hospita, found that taxoxifen combined with dasatinib, a protein-tyrosine kinase inhibitor, reverses the chemo-resistance caused by cancer-associated fibroblasts in the surrounding tissue by normalizing glucose intake and reducing mitochondrial oxidative stress, the process that fuels the cancer cells.
In this study, researchers sought to better understand drug resistance
by looking at the metabolic basis in an ER (+) cell line and cancer-associated fibroblasts. Researchers claim that the resistance to chemotherapeutic agents is a metabolic and stromal phenomenal and the drug combination had an "antioxidant effect" in these types of cancer cells.
Researchers showed that ER (+) cancer cells alone responded to tamoxifen but when co-cultured with human fibroblasts had little to no effect. Similarly, dasatinib, a chemotherapy drug used to treat leukemia patients who can no longer benefit from other medications, had no effect on fibroblasts alone or cancer cells. Together, however, the drugs prevented the cancer cells co-cultured with the fibroblasts from using high-energy nutrients from the fibroblasts. Researchers conclude that,
"The drugs have no effect when they are used alone-it's in unison when they effectively kill the cancer cells in the presence of fibroblasts and combination resulted in nearly 80 percent cell death"
Ref: http://www.jeffersonhospital.org/News/leukemia-drug-reverses-tamoxifen-resistance-in-breast-cancer-cells.aspx
