Drug toxicity assessment: cell proliferation versus cell death

Analysis of the toxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs is one of the main tasks of clinical pharmacology. Decreased viability of tumor cells may reflect two important physiological processes, namely the arrest of proliferation associated with disturbances in cellular metabolism or actual cell death. Elucidation of the exact processes mediating a reduction in the number of cells is fundamentally important to establish the mechanisms of drug action. Only the use of a combination of cell biological and biochemical approaches makes it possible to understand these mechanisms. Here, using various lines of tumor cells and a set of methodological approaches, we carried out a detailed comparative analysis and demonstrated the possible ways to overcome the uncertainties in establishing the mechanisms of cell response to the action of chemotherapeutic drugs and their toxicity.

Automated summary

This article discusses the importance of analyzing the toxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs in clinical pharmacology, as well as the physiological processes and mechanisms of drug action involved in the decreased viability of tumor cells. The authors conducted a detailed comparative analysis using various methods and tumor cell lines, demonstrating possible ways to overcome uncertainties.