Targeting the resistance of pancreatic cancer cells to nutrient deprivation: anti-austerity compounds.

The emerging "anti-austerity" anti-cancer therapeutic strategy targets the ability of certain cancer cell lines, particularly pancreatic cancer, to survive nutrient deprivation. While biochemical pathways for the tolerance to nutrient deprivation are still not well understood, a growing number of inhibitors of this process are being discovered. A number of natural products have been isolated, structurally characterized and evaluated as inhibitors of austerity, thereby providing valuable initial structure-activity relationship data.