Taxol-resistant lung carcinoma

Short term treatment with TPA sensitized human 2008 ovarian carcinoma cells to cis-platin. This sensitization disappeared completely by seven hours after treatment, indicating that not inhibition, but activation of PKC sensitizes 2008 cells to the antiproliferative activity of cis-platin (Isonishi et al., 1990). Pretreatment of HeLa cells with TPA or PdBu caused a 9-fold increase in cellular sensitivity to cis-platin and 2.5-fold to melphalan, but had now effect on the antiproliferative activity of bleomycin, adriamycin, vincristine, or mitomycin C. The sensitization of HeLa cells by TPA was associated with a 6-fold stimulation of PKC activation and a concentration- and time-dependent increase in cellular platinum content. (Basu et al. 1990). PKC activity was found to be decreased significantly in cis-platin-resistant human small cell lung H69/CP cancer cells compared to the drug-sensitive variant. A similar reduction in PKC activity was noted in ovarian carcinoma 2008 cells that were resistant to cis-platin. A modest decrease in PKC activity was also observed in etoposide-resistant H69 cells but not in taxol-resistant H69 cells or bleomycin-resistant human head and neck carcinoma A-253 cells (Basu et al., 1996), indicating that reduced PKC activity leads to decreased sensitivity in this system. 

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