New Insights on Glucosylceramide Synthase in Cancer Drug Resistance and Myelosuppression.

Diverging from eliminating tumors, many anticancer agents can result in drug resistance and myelosuppression or bone marrow suppression in patients during the course of chemotherapy. Drug resistance and myelosuppression are two major impediments to the success of chemotherapy. Recent study of Bhinge et al. demonstrates that glucosylceramide synthase (GCS) can determine the opposite effects of doxorubicin on breast cancer stem cells versus bone marrow stem cells in vivo [1,2]. These observations disclose new insights on GCS in stem cells that are basis of drug resistance and myelosuppression.