Differential expression and activity of P-glycoprotein and multidrug resistance-associated protein in CD34-positive KG1a leukemic cells.

CD34+ acute myeloid leukemias generally respond poorly to chemotherapy when compared to CD34- myeloid leukemias. In order to contribute to the analysis of the mechanisms involved in this drug resistance, expression and activity of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP), two drug efflux pumps conferring multidrug resistance, have been investigated in the CD34+ KG1a leukemic myeloid cell line and in two CD34- K562 and HL60 leukemic myeloid cell lines. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and dye efflux assays revealed that KG1a cells express P-gp but not MRP whereas neither P-gp nor MRP were detected in K562 and HL60 cells. In addition, KG1a cells were demonstrated to display resistance to anticancer drug substrates for P-gp such as vincristine and daunorubicin and to poorly accumulate vincristine. These results indicated that P-gp, in contrast to MRP, is expressed and functional in the drug-resistant CD34+ KG1a cell line, that may constitute a useful cellular model to analyze the constitutive chemoresistance of CD34+ acute myeloid leukemias.