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Updated: Jul 29, 2026
Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation in Gastrointestinal Cancer
Published on: September 18, 2020
P-glycoprotein expression and chemosensitivity in highly purified fresh human gastrointestinal cancer cells
T Hotta1, H Tanimura, T Tsunoda
1Second Department of Surgery, Wakayama Medical School, Japan.
Background/Aims:
Colorectal cancer is one of the tumors most refractory to treatment by chemotherapy. One of the major problems associated with cancer chemotherapy is drug-resistance of tumor cells, and resistance to doxorubicin (DOX) is mainly due to the effect of P-glycoprotein. We have tried to prove the correlation between P-glycoprotein expression and DOX-sensitivity in highly purified fresh human colorectal cancer and, moreover, to prove the differentiation of P-glycoprotein expression between the different kinds of cancers, including gastric cancer.
Methodology:
The present study was designed to quantify P-glycoprotein expression by flow cytometry, and DOX-sensitivity by MTT assay in highly purified fresh human tumor cells obtained from 29 cancer patients including 13 colorectal cancers and 16 gastric cancers.
Results:
DOX-sensitivity decreased in proportion to P-glycoprotein expression in colorectal cancer. P-glycoprotein expression in colorectal cancer was higher than that in gastric cancer. Particularly, P-glycoprotein expression in colorectal cancer in the DOX low-sensitivity group was higher than in the DOX high-sensitivity group.
Conclusions:
The chemotherapeutic management of patients with colorectal cancer might be more effective if we can circumvent the effect of P-glycoprotein.
