%0 Journal Article
%T Regulation of tumor cell apoptotic sensitivity during the cell cycle (Review).
%A Smith DM
%A Gao G
%A Zhang X
%A Wang G
%A Dou QP
%J Int J Mol Med
%V 6
%N 5
%D Nov 2000
%M 11029514
%F 5.314
%R 10.3892/ijmm.6.5.503
%X Understanding how current chemotherapeutic modalities induce apoptosis is critical to designing better anti-cancer agents. This review is concerned with how pharmacological agents induce tumor cell apoptosis in a cell cycle-dependent manner. Recent experiments demonstrate that expression of several apoptotic regulatory proteins (such as Bcl-2, Bax, p53, and Survivin) are differentially regulated according to the phases of the cell cycle. This cell cycle-dependent regulation in turn contributes to increased drug sensitivity in different phases of the cell cycle. It is therefore likely that the cell cycle-dependent expression of cell death proteins plays a role in regulating chemosensitivity and apoptotic commitment of human tumor cells.