Reduced drug accumulation is more important in acquired resistance against oxaliplatin than against cisplatin in isogenic colon cancer cells.

Preclinical studies have indicated that there is only partial cross-resistance between cisplatin and oxaliplatin. The molecular background for this is incompletely known. To investigate the differences in resistance, we rendered a colon cancer cell line (S1) resistant against cisplatin and oxaliplatin and characterized the subclones with regard to cross-resistance, platinum uptake, and gene expression profiles. Four oxaliplatin and four cisplatin-resistant cell lines were produced from S1 by step-wise increasing the concentrations of the drugs in the growth medium. Cytotoxicity was determined by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and platinum accumulation in cell lysates and DNA preparations by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. Gene expression was investigated by cDNA microarrays. The protein expression of the ATP-binding cassette B1 (ABCB1) was measured by immunohistochemistry. The cisplatin-resistant cell lines were 1.5-6.2-fold resistant against cisplatin and the oxaliplatin-resistant sublines 2.6-17-fold resistant against oxaliplatin. There was a limited degree of cross-resistance. Oxaliplatin resistance could be explained to a larger degree by reduced drug accumulation whereas mechanisms for increased tolerance against platinum incorporation in DNA seemed to be of higher importance for resistance against cisplatin. A greater number of ABC transporters were upregulated in the oxaliplatin-resistant cell lines compared with those selected for cisplatin resistance. ABCB1 was highly overexpressed in the three most oxaliplatin-resistant sublines, but significantly underexpressed in the two most cisplatin-resistant cell lines. This was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry. However, functional tests did not show any increase in ABCB1 transport activity in the oxaliplatin-resistant sub-lines compared with S1.