0000000000967820
AUTHOR
Matthias Pick
Acquired resistance of melanoma cells to the antineoplastic agent fotemustine is caused by reactivation of the DNA repair gene mgmt
Acquired resistance to antineoplastic agents is a frequent obstacle in tumor therapy. Malignant melanoma cells are particularly well known for their unresponsiveness to chemotherapy; only about 30% of tumors exhibit a transient clinical response to treatment. In our study, we investigated the molecular mechanism of acquired resistance of melanoma cells (MeWo) to the chloroethylating drug fotemustine. Determination of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) activity showed that MeWo cells that acquired resistance to fotemustine upon repeated treatment with the drug display high MGMT activity, whereas the parental cell line had no detectable MGMT. The resistant cell lines exhibit cross-…
Expression of DNA repair proteins hMSH2, hMSH6, hMLH1,O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase and N-methylpurine-DNA glycosylase in melanoma cells with acquired drug resistance
Malignant melanoma is well known for its primary unresponsiveness to chemotherapy. The mechanisms conferring this intrinsic resistance are unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of genes involved in DNA repair in a panel of human melanoma cell variants exhibiting low and high levels of resistance to 4 commonly used drugs in melanoma treatment, i.e., vindesine, etoposide, fotemustine and cisplatin. We show that in melanoma cells exhibiting resistance to cisplatin, etoposide and vindesine, the nuclear content of each of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) proteins hMLH1, hMSH2 and hMSH6 was reduced by 30–70%. A decreased expression level of up to 80% of mRNAs encoding hMLH1 and hMSH2 was …