In order to investigate the malignant phenotype of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 overexpressing cancer cells, a human epidermoid KB carcinoma cell line minimally expressing COX-2 protein was transfected with human COX-2 cDNA. In this study, we used a COX-2 transfected clone KB/COX-2 and a neomycin-transfected clone KB/neo as the control. When we examined the susceptibility to anticancer agents, there was no difference between these two clones in vincristine, bleomycin and 5-fluorouracil, although KB/COX-2 showed a 2.5-fold resistance to cisplatin (CDDP) as compared with KB/neo. The IC50 for CDDP was 4.3 µM in KB/COX-2 and 1.7 µM in KB/neo. Treatment with small interfering RNA (siRNA) mediated the inhibition of COX-2 significantly increasing the level of susceptibility to CDDP in COX-2 siRNA as compared to that of the control siRNA. The expression of MRP1 and MRP2 was stronger in KB/COX-2 than in KB/neo by Western blot analysis. In addition, apoptosis induction by CDDP was at a lower level in KB/COX-2 (31%) than in KB/neo (38%). These results suggested that the overexpression of COX-2 increases the intracellular production of MRP1 and MRP2 and causes drug resistance to CDDP.

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