Adriamycin Sensitizes Adriamycin-Resistant HL-60/ADR Cells to TRAIL-Mediated Apoptosis

OBJECTIVE To study whether an adriamycin-resistant cell line(HL-60/ADR) can be sensitized by adriamycin(ADR) to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis.METHODS The mRNA levels of the TRAIL receptor and apoptosis-related signaling molecules involved in the TRAIL-mediated apoptotic pathway were measured by RT-PCR.The protein levels of apoptotic-related signaling molecules involved in the TRAIL-mediated apoptotic pathway and processed caspase-3,caspase-9,and caspase-8 were measured by Western blots.Apoptosis was assessed by flow cytometry.Mitochondrial membrane potential was analyzed by DiOC6(3) staining.Cytotoxicity was determined by the colorimetric MTT viability/ proliferation assay.RESULTS Treatment with a combination of TRAIL and subtoxic concentrations of ADR resulted in synergistic cytotoxicity and apoptosis for both the parental HL-60 and the HL-60/ADR cells.For HL-60,there was a 5-fold potentiation and synergy in cytotoxicity for TRAIL and for HL-60/ADR,cytotoxicity to TRAIL was potentiated 6-fold with ADR.Adriamycin treatment modestly up-regulated TRAIL-R2(DR5),but had no effect on the expression of Fas-associated death domain,c-FLIP,Bcl-2,Bcl-xL,Bax,and IAP family members(cIAP-1,cIAP-2,XIAP,and survivin).The protein levels of pro-caspase-8 and pro-caspase-3 were not affected by ADR,whereas pro-caspase-9 and Apaf-1 were up-regulated.Combined treatment with TRAIL and ADR resulted in activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3,but there was no detectable processing of caspase-8 beyond the background levels.There was signif icant depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane by the combined treatment of both cell lines and it was more pronounced in the parental HL-60 cell line.The combined treatment with TRAIL and ADR resulted in 42.6% of the HL-60/ADR cells undergoing DNA fragmentation,whereas treatment with either ADR or TRAIL alone resulted in 5.46% and 21.3% DNA fragmented cells,respectively.Similar results were obtained with the HL-60 cells.CONCLUSION These fi ndings demonstrate that ADR can still signal ADR-resistant tumor cells,resulting in the modifi cation of the TRAIL-mediated signaling pathway and apoptosis.