Progress of mechanism of cytarabine resistance in acute leukemia

Cytarabine is an anti-metabolic drug with cytotoxicity, which plays an important role in the treatment of acute leukemia. Cytarabine mainly acts on S proliferation phase of tumor cells. Normally, cytosine integrates with deoxyribose to form deoxycytidine, which is one of the components of DNA. Cytarabine is a deoxycytidine analogue, which can replace the former to form DNA. Therefore, it inhibits the synthesis of cellular DNA, interferes with the proliferation of tumor cells and achieves the therapeutic purpose, due to the different structure. Different genetic backgrounds and different efficiencies of drug absorption, metabolism and elimination may result in changes in the effectiveness of the drug regimen containing cytarabine, which may affect the survival of patients with acute leukemia. The research progress of drug resistance mechanism of cytarabine in acute leukemia is reviewed and summarized in this paper. Key words: Leukemia, acute; Cytarabine; Drug resistance mechanism