Resistance to farnesyltransferase inhibitors in Bcr/Abl-positive lymphoblastic leukemia by increased expression of a novel ABC transporter homolog ATP11a.

Resistance to cytotoxic drugs frequently emerges during treatment of leukemia with conventional chemotherapy. New classes of anticancer drugs, such as the farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs), show therapeutic promise, but whether cells will easily develop resistance against them is not known. Here, we grew breakpoint cluster region/Abelson murine leukemia (Bcr/Abl) P190 lymphoblasts on stroma and made them resistant to the FTI SCH66336/lonafarnib to model emerging drug resistance in a patient. These cells exhibited greatly increased (> 100-fold) expression levels of a novel ATP (adenosine triphosphate)-binding cassette (ABC) transporter-homologous gene, ATP11A. We showed that overexpression of this gene provided protection against the effects of SCH66336, whereas knockdown of endogenous ATP11a using small interfering RNA (siRNA) made cells more sensitive to this drug. The lymphoblasts that were resistant to this FTI were also more resistant to FTI-276 and to GGTI-298, 2 other structurally similar inhibitors. Surprisingly, the cells were also able to survive higher concentrations of imatinib mesylate, the Bcr/Abl tyrosine kinase inhibitor. However, the cells remained sensitive to vincristine. Our results show that elevated levels of ATP11a can protect malignant lymphoblastic leukemia cells against several novel small molecule signal transduction inhibitors. A determination of the expression levels of this gene may have prognostic value when treatment with such classes of drugs is contemplated.