Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Implementation of In Vitro Drug Resistance Assays: Maximizing the Potential for Uncovering Clinically Relevant Resistance Mechanisms
Published on: December 9, 2015
Drug resistance as a dynamic process in a model for multistep gene amplification under various levels of selection
1Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Abstract:
Resistance to antineoplastic drugs has been a major impediment to the successful treatment of cancer. Recent studies suggest that several mechanisms are responsible for the emergence of drug resistance but that high levels of resistance and poor prognosis are strongly associated with gene or oncogene amplification. In this report we describe a probabilistic model for gene amplification in a tumor that grows under various drug protocols. The model is new in that it treats drug resistance as a dynamic process and examines specific assumptions about the underlying molecular events. Using this model, we specify the conditions for the emergence of drug-resistant mutants prior to selection as well as the relationship between the stringency of the selecting environment and the characteristics of the resultant cellular phenotype.
Related Concept Videos
Mismatch Repair
Antibiotic Selection
Treatment Resistant Cancers
Mismatch Repair
The Mutator Protein Family Plays a Key Role in DNA Mismatch Repair
The human genome has more than 3 billion base pairs of DNA per cell. Prior to cell division, that vast amount of genetic...
Evolution of New Traits in Microbes
Mechanism of Antibiotic Resistance in MRSA

