The study of innate drug resistance of human hepatocellular carcinoma Bel7402 cell line.

The innate drug resistance of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Bel7402 cell line was studied in vitro. MTT assay showed that Bel7402 cells were innately resistant to doxorubicin (Dox), and even more resistant to vincristine (VCR). This resistance could be effectively reversed by verapamil (Ver), one of the classical multidrug resistance (MDR) modulating agents. However, the differences in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) toxicity between these two cell lines is much less and the resistance of Bel7402 cells could only be slightly reversed by Ver, which may be experimental noise. Immunocytochemical staining using anti-p-glycoprotein monoclonal antibody JSB-1 indicated that the expression of the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in the innate Bel7402 cells was elevated compared with the sensitive KB cells. The accumulation of Dox in innate resistant Bel7402 cells was 50.7% lower than that in sensitive KB cells by using spectrofluometric analyses, and the accumulation of Dox increased 1.6 fold in Bel7402 cells in the presence of Ver. The susceptibility of Dox-induced apoptosis was also increased in the presence of Ver by using flow cytometric assay and DNA fragmentation quantitative assay as well as by Hoechst 33258 staining. It appears that the innate Bel7402 cells might be useful in screening new antitumour drugs or new chemosensitisers which could overcome the innate or acquired resistant mechanism, and the toxicity and reversal effects with 5-FU are different from those known to be P-gp substrates such as VCR, Dox, and taxol.