The role of oncogenes in drug resistance.

Increasing evidences indicate that oncogenes can directly or indirectly impact on cancer-cell drug resistance. This chapter provides a conceptual review regarding the role of oncogenes in drug resistance. The review is focused on drug resistance mediated by oncogenes encoding growth factor receptors, signaling molecules, transcription factors, cell-cycle regulators, and apoptosis regulators. It is my hope that better undertsnading on the role of oncogenes in drug resistance will invoke ideas on new approaches to enhance the cytotoxicity of the standard chemotherapeutic agents by functional perturbation of resistance-inducing oncogenes.