How Cancer Cells Become Resistant to Cationic Lytic Peptides: It's the Sugar!

In this issue of Cell Chemical Biology, Ishikawa et al. (2017) demonstrate that the loss of cell-surface anionic saccharides can impart resistance toward anticancer peptides. This study provides the first insight into potential resistance mechanisms toward cationic lytic peptides and highlights the important, yet previously unappreciated, role cell-surface glycans can play in cellular resistance mechanisms.