At present more than 9 million people die of cancer every year. Simple and broad-spectrum drugs are still an urgent need for cancer patients. Recently, we proposed a new hypothesis that intracellular osmotic pressure (IOP) is the driving force of cell division, and abnormal tumor proliferation is the result of uncontrolled IOP in cells. On the one hand, aneuploidy and abnormal function of Na+/K+ pump lead to a faster rise of IOP in tumor cell than normal cells, on the other hand, abnormality of cytoskeleton assembly leads to the decrease of tolerance limit of cell membrane (TLCM) of tumor cells for resisting IOP. This hypothesis predicts: 1)Tumor cells were more intolerant to hypotonic stress than normal cells. 2) Maligancies may be sellectively killed by a suddenn increase of IOP and combined with decrease of the TLCM of tumors. Na+/K+ pump inhibitors can promotely increase the IOP of tumor cells and cytoskeleton inhibitors can dramatically lower the TLCM of tumor cells. Therefore, Na+/K+ pump and cytoskeleton inhibitors may have a synergetic effect to kill tumor cells. 3) Molecules regulating cell osmolality may be new targets for cancer treatment.
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Subject: Medicine and Pharmacology - Oncology and Oncogenics
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