Research Progress on Multidrug Resistance Mechanism of Cancer Cells and Its Reversal Agents

Multiple drug resistance (MDR) of cancer cells is one of the main factors resulting in treatment difficulties and disease relapses, and therefore becomes the research emphasis in current cancer chemotherapy. Many studies revealed that the multidrug resistance gene mdr1 and multidrug resistance-associated protein gene mrp showed increased expression in drug resistance cancer cells, and at the same time they were regulated by some genes and proteins, such as P53, P-gp and so forth. In addition, DNA methylation is also a factor involved in the MDR of cancer cells. In this review, the current research progress on the mechanism of cancer cell MDR and corresponding MDR reversal agents were described.