In vitro responses of nude mouse-xenografted human colon carcinomas exposed to doxorubicin derivatives in tissue culture and in the mouse.

In vitro responses of 4 xenografted human colon tumors (T183, T219, T245, and T348) to various doses of 4'-deoxydoxorubicin have been investigated. The individual tumors showed marked differences in drug responsiveness, ranging from high sensitivity at low doses (T219; 125 ng/ml) to very low sensitivity at high doses (T245; 4000 ng/ml). The sensitivity ranking deduced from these in vitro experiments correlates well with the ranking deduced earlie (Guiliani et al., Int. J. Cancer, 27: 5-13, 1981) from in vivo drug treatments of transplants of these tumors in the nude mouse. The effect of in vitro drug treatment (4'-deoxydoxorubicin; 250 ng/ml; 1-hr incubation) on the in vivo growth of one of the tumors, T219, in nude mice was investigated. Growth of the tumor in nude mice was markedly delayed by pretreatments in vitro with 4'-deoxydoxorubicin. Furthermore, in vitro responsiveness of the T219 tumor was investigated following in vivo and in vitro treatment of the tumor with 4'-deoxydoxorubicin. Both of the pretreatments produced very similar decreases in drug responsiveness to all of the doxorubicin derivatives tested (4'-deoxydoxorubicin, 4'-O-methyldoxorubicin, 4'-epidoxorubicin, 4-demethoxydoxorubicin, and N-trifluoroacetyldoxorubicin-14-valeriate).