Establishment and characteristics of a paclitaxel resistant human lung adenocarcinoma cell subline(SPC-A1/Taxol)

Objective:To establish a new paclitaxel resistant human lung adenocarcinoma cell subline(SPC-A1/Taxol) and investigate its characteristics. Methods:A paclitaxel resistant human lung adenocarcinoma cell subline(SPC-A1/Taxol) was developed by intermittent exposure to gradually increasing concentration of Taxol from the parent cell line SPC-A1 in vitro. The multidrug resistance of SPC-A1/Taxol to anticancer agents was evaluated by MTT assay. The morphological features and the celluar ultrastructure characteristics were observed respectively by light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.The distribution of its cell cycle was detected by flow cytometry. The expression of P-glycoprotein(P-gp) was detected by immunocytochemistry staining. Results:SPC-A1/Taxol cells were of 759.46-fold resistance to Taxol and displayed high resistance to Taxotere,NVB,ADM,but low resistance with VP-16 and HCPT. No cross-resistance was observed to DDP,GEM and Elemene emusion. Comparing with the parent cells,the multiplication time of SPC-A1/Taxol cells was prolonged,their morphology was not changed obviously,and the proportion of cells in (G_ 0 +G_ 1 )-phase decreased while those in S-phase increased. The expression of P-gp in resistant cells was significantly higher than in their parent cells. Conclusions:SPC-A1/Taxol cell subline is a typical multidrug-resistant cell line which has basic characteristics of drug-resistance cells. It was supposed that the multidrug resistance of SPC-A1/Taxol was related to the over expression of P-gp.