The Role of Cellular Metabolism in Carcinogenesis. Molecular Pathophysiology of Bladder Cancer Chemoresistance

Therapeutic resistance of tumours represents an important clinical issue. We can classify the therapeutic tumour resistance in two ways. According to the clinical course, tumours can behave either as primary resistant, i.e. from the very beginning not responsive, or they can display a secondary (also called acquired) resistance, whereby an initial clinical response is lost and the tumour develops into chemo-, radio- or immunoresistant disease. An alternative classification distinguishes cell autonomous resistance mechanisms from resistance that relies on complex interactions within the context of tumour microenvironment. From the research perspective, modelling therapeutic resistance frequently involves experimental treatment of sensitive cancer cells and selection of daughter resistant cell lines. The Ph.D. thesis includes derivation of two unique models of urothelial bladder carcinoma therapeutic resistance. The first model involves newly established urothelial carcinoma cell lines BC44 and BC44DoxoR, which resulted from a prolonged doxorubicin exposure of the mother cell line. The daughter chemoresistant cell line exhibits multidrug resistant phenotype, which extends beyond the selecting drug - doxorubicin - to four additional chemotherapeutic drugs (cisplatin, methotrexate, vinblastine, and..