HIF-1α-induced autophagy contributes to cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer cells.

In this study, the viability and apoptosis of ovarian cancer cell line OVCAR-3 were assessed using MTT and flow cytometry analysis. GFP-tagged LC3 plasmid transfection was utilized to demonstrate the occurrence of autophagy. The expression of HIF-1α, Beclin1, LC3 and β-actin were determined with Western blot analysis. We found that hypoxia could inhibit cisplatin induced apoptosis in OVCAR-3 cells and enhance the chemoresistance to cisplatin. Furthermore, GFP-tagged LC3 plasmid transfection and western blot were used to demonstrate that hypoxia induced chemoresistance of OVCAR-3 cells to cisplatin is related to HIF-1α-induced autophagy. All these findings suggest that the cisplatin resistance of ovarian cancer cells is associated with HIF-1α-induced autophagy.