The oncogenic PIM kinase family regulates drug resistance through multiple mechanisms

Resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs is a significant clinical problem for the treatment of cancer patients and has been linked to the activation of survival pathways and expression of multidrug efflux transporters. Thus inhibition of these survival pathways or efflux transporter expression may increase the efficacy of drug treatment. Here we review the role of the oncogenic PIM kinase family in regulating important proliferation and survival pathways in cancer cells and the involvement of PIM kinases in the expression and activity of MDR-1 and BCRP, two of the most important drug efflux transporters. PIM kinases are over expressed in various types of tumors and regulate the activation of signaling pathways that are important for tumor cell proliferation, survival and expression of drug efflux proteins. This makes PIM kinases attractive targets for the development of anti-cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. Focussing mainly on solid tumors, we provide an update on the literature describing the tumorigenic functions of PIM kinases. Also we provide an overview of the development of selective small molecule PIM kinase inhibitors. Because of the intense effort by pharmaceutical companies and academia it is reasonable to expect that PIM kinase inhibitors will enter the clinic in the foreseeable future. We therefore finish this review with a discussion on the most efficient application of these PIM inhibitors. This includes a consideration of which tumor type is the most appropriate target for treatment, how to select the patient population that stands to gain the most from treatment with PIM inhibitors, which molecular markers are suitable to follow the course of treatment and whether PIM kinase inhibitors should be used as monotherapy or in combination with other cytotoxic agents.