Progress and challenges of multidrug resistance proteins in diseases

Chemotherapy remains the first choice for patients with advanced cancers when other treatments are ineffective. Multidrug resistance (MDR) is an unavoidable factor that negatively affects the effectiveness of cancer chemotherapy drugs. Researchers are trying to reduce MDR, improve the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs, and alleviate patient suffering to positively contribute to disease treatment. MDR also occurs in inflammation and genetic disorders, which increases the difficulty of clinically beneficial treatments. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) is an active transporter that plays an important role in the barrier and secretory functions of many normal cells. As the C subfamily in the ABC family, multidrug resistance proteins (MRPs/ABCCs) export a variety of antitumour drugs and are expressed in a variety of cancers. The present review summarises the role of MRPs in cancer and other diseases and recent research progress of MRP inhibitors to better examine the mechanism and function of MRPs, and establish a good relationship with clinical treatment.