Increasing drug resistance in human lung cancer cells by mutant-type p53 gene mediated by retrovirus

Human mutant-type (mt) p53 cDNA was synthesized and cloned from human lung cancer cell line GL containing mt-p53 gene by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It was confirmed that the mt-p53 cDNA contained the complete coding sequence of p53 gene but mutated at codon 245 (G→T) and resulted in glycine to cysteine by sequencing analysis. The retroviral vector pD53M of the mt-p53 was constructed and introduced into the drug-sensitive human lung cancer cells GAO in which p53 gene did not mutate. The transfected GAO cells strongly expressed mutant-type p53 protein by immunohistochemistry, showing that pD53M vector could steadily express in GAO cells. The drug resistance to several anticancer agents of GAO cells infected by pD53M increased in varying degrees, with the highest increase of 4-fold,in vitro andin vivo. By quantitative PCR and flow cytometry (FCM) analyses, the expression of MDR1 gene and the activity of P-glycoprotein (Pgp) did not increase, the expression of MRP gene and the activity of multidrug resistance-related protein (Mrp) increased slightly. These results indicated that the drug resistance associated with mt-p53 gene might be somewhat correlated with MRP/Mrp but not with MDR1/Pgp. It was possible to modify the tumor drug resistance by changing status of p53 gene.