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Resistance of colon cancer cells to long‐term 5‐fluorouracil exposure is correlated to the relative level of Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐X L in addition to Bax and p53 status
Author(s) -
Violette Sabine,
Poulain Laurent,
Dussaulx Elisabeth,
Pepin Dominique,
Faussat AnneMarie,
Chambaz Jean,
Lacorte JeanMarc,
Staedel Cathy,
Lesuffleur Thécla
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
international journal of cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.475
H-Index - 234
eISSN - 1097-0215
pISSN - 0020-7136
DOI - 10.1002/ijc.10146
Subject(s) - apoptosis , cell culture , bcl 2 associated x protein , cancer research , colorectal cancer , programmed cell death , biology , cell , in vivo , microbiology and biotechnology , cancer , caspase 3 , genetics
Defects in apoptosis have been implicated in chemoresistance of colon cancer cells. We report here the ability to resist to 5‐fluorouracil‐induced apoptosis of 8 colon cancer cell lines differing in p53 and bax status: p53 −/0 bax +/+ for TC7, SW480, HT‐29; p53 +/+ bax −/− for LS174T, LoVo; p53 +/+ bax +/− for HCT116; p53 +/+ or p53 +/0 bax +/+ for LS513 or HCT‐EB, respectively. To approximate to the in vivo therapy, the cell lines were exposed to a long‐term treatment of 5‐FU. The analysis of proteins implicated in the apoptotic pathway has shown that the independent analysis of p53 or bax status was not sufficient to predict the extent of drug‐resistance of all cell lines. In p53 +/+ cell lines but not in p53 −/0 cell lines, a low level of the pro‐apoptotic Bax protein was correlated with a greater resistance of cells to 5‐FU. In addition, we found that high levels of anti‐apoptotic Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐x L proteins combined with a low level of Bax were correlated to high 5‐FU resistance of wild‐type p53 cell lines. The same correlation was obtained for 2 out of 3 mutated p53 cell lines. In conclusion, the relative levels of Bcl‐2, Bcl‐x L and Bax may altogether contribute to determine the resistance of a majority of colon tumor cells to long‐term 5‐FU treatment, whatever their p53 status. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.