Use of ribozymes and antisense oligodeoxynucleotides to investigate mechanisms of drug resistance

Chemotherapy can cure a number of human cancers but resistance (either intrinsic or acquired) remains a significant problem in many patients and in many types of solid tumour. Combination chemotherapy (using drugs with different cellular targets/mechanisms) was introduced in order to kill cells which had developed resistance to a specific drug, and to allow delivery of a greater total dose of anti-cancer chemicals by combining drugs with different side-effects (Pratt et al., 1994). Nearly all anti-cancer drugs kill tumour cells by activating an endogenous bio-chemical pathway for cell suicide, known as programmed cell death or apoptosis.