How Taxol/paclitaxel Kills Cancer Cells

Overview

Journal Mol Biol Cell

Specialties Cell Biology
Molecular Biology

Date 2014 Sep 13

PMID 25213191

Citations 578

Authors

Beth A Weaver

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Taxol (generic name paclitaxel) is a microtubule-stabilizing drug that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of ovarian, breast, and lung cancer, as well as Kaposi's sarcoma. It is used off-label to treat gastroesophageal, endometrial, cervical, prostate, and head and neck cancers, in addition to sarcoma, lymphoma, and leukemia. Paclitaxel has long been recognized to induce mitotic arrest, which leads to cell death in a subset of the arrested population. However, recent evidence demonstrates that intratumoral concentrations of paclitaxel are too low to cause mitotic arrest and result in multipolar divisions instead. It is hoped that this insight can now be used to develop a biomarker to identify the ∼50% of patients that will benefit from paclitaxel therapy. Here I discuss the history of paclitaxel and our recently evolved understanding of its mechanism of action.

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