Conventional chemotherapy relies on the cytotoxicity of chemo-drugs to inflict destructive effects on tumor cells. However, as most tumor cells develop resistance to chemo-drusummgs, small doses of chemo-drugs are unlikely to provide significant clinical benefits in cancer treatment while high doses of chemo-drugs have been shown to impact normal human cells negatively due to the non-specific nature and cytotoxicity associated with chemo-drugs. To overcome this challenge, sensitizations of tumor cells with bioactive molecules that specifically target the pro-survival and pro-apoptosis signaling pathways of the tumor cells are likely to increase the therapeutic impacts and improve the clinical outcomes by reducing the dependency and adverse effects associated with using high doses of chemo-drugs in cancer treatment. This review focuses on emerging strategies to enhance the sensitization of tumor cells toward cancer therapies based on our understanding of tumor cell biology and underlying signaling pathways.

常规化疗依赖化疗药物的细胞毒性对肿瘤细胞造成破坏性影响。然而，由于大多数肿瘤细胞对化疗药物产生耐药性，小剂量化疗药物不太可能在癌症治疗中提供显着的临床益处，而高剂量化疗药物已被证明会对正常人体细胞产生负面影响，因为非与化学药物相关的特定性质和细胞毒性。为了克服这一挑战，用特异性靶向肿瘤细胞促存活和促凋亡信号通路的生物活性分子对肿瘤细胞进行敏化，可能会通过减少与肿瘤细胞相关的依赖性和副作用来增加治疗效果并改善临床结果。在癌症治疗中使用高剂量的化学药物。