Acquired drug resistance poses a challenge in cancer therapy. Drug efflux is the most common mechanism of resistance displayed by hydrophobic drugs beyond a certain size. However, target specific changes and imbalance between the pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins are also found quite often in many tumours. A number of small antimitotic agents show high potential for multidrug resistant tumours, mainly because they are able to evade the efflux pumps. However, these compounds are also likely to suffer from resistance upon prolonged treatment. Thus, it is important to find out agents that are sensitive to resistant tumours and to know the resistance mechanisms against small molecules so that proper combinations can be planned. In this report, we have studied the efficiency of diaminothiazoles, a novel class of tubulin targeting potential anticancer compounds of small size, in multidrug resistant cancer. Studies in model cell lines raised against taxol and the lead diaminothiazole, DAT1 [4-amino-5-benzoyl-2-(4-methoxy phenyl amino) thiazole], and the xenograft tumours derived from them, show that diaminothiazoles are highly promising against multidrug resistant cancers. They were able to overcome the expression of efflux protein MDR1 and certain tubulin isotypes, could sensitize improper apoptotic machinery and ablated checkpoint proteins Bub1 and Mad2. Further, we have found that the resistance against microtubule binding compounds with higher size is broad-spectrum and emerges due to multiple factors including overexpression of transmembrane pumps. However, resistance against small molecules is transient, specific and is contributed by target specific changes and variations in apoptotic factors.
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