Molecular Biological Mechanisms of Cyclosporine a, Tetrandrine and Their Combination on the Reversion of Multidrug Resistance in Leukemia Cell Line

Objective Previous researches confirmed that multidrugresistance(MDR) plays an important role in the failure of chemotherapy on malignant tumors. This study was to investigate the molecular biological mechanisms of cyclosporine A(CsA), tetrandrine(Tet) and their combination on multidrug resistance cell line K562/A02.

Methods K562/A02 cells were treated with cyclosporine A and (or) tetrandrine. The intracellular DNR concentration and the expression of P-glyco-protein (P-gp) were observed by flow cytometry (FCM) assay. The mRNA expression of mdr-1 was measured by fluorescent semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR).

Resulds CsA and Tet (alone or combination) elevated the intracellular DNR concentration in K562/A02 cells(the fluorescence intensity of intracellelar DNR in K562/A02 cells was 60%,65% and 98% respectively of that in K562 cells); The fluorescence intensity of P-gp in K562 and K562/A02 cells was 0.5% and 97.97%. The P-gp expression was down after treated with CsA,Tet and both(75.32%,76.86% and 48.61%); mdr1 mRNA was also down regulated, and the effect of their combination was greater.

Conclusion Multidrug resistance (MDR) can be partially reversed by CsA or Tet, the combination of both drugs shows a great synergistic reversal effect.