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Updated: Jul 2, 2026

Modeling Chemotherapy Resistant Leukemia In Vitro
Published on: February 9, 2016
[Effects of cytokines on multidrug-resistance in K562/A02 cells]
Objective:
To explore the effects of cytokines on human leukemic cell line K562/S and its multidrug-resistant counterpart K562/A02.
Methods:
The toxicities of cytokines and the IC50 (the concentration causing 50% inhibition of cell growth) of DNR were assayed by MTT method; intracellular drug concentration was measured by fluorometry; p-glycoprotein (p-gp) expression was detected by APAAP and mdr-1 mRNA was assayed by RT-PCR.
Results:
The IC50 of DNR for K562/A02 and K562/S cells were 45.08 microg/ml and 0.607 microg/ml, respectively. Pretreating K562/A02 cells with rhu IFN (500 U/ml) or rhu IL-2 (250 U/ml) for 24 hours partially restored the sensitivity of K562/A02 cells to DNR (IC50 were 16.39 and 11.96 microg/ml, respectively) but had not effect on K562/S cells, and it elevated the intracellular DNR accumulation in K562/A02 from 2151 ng/mg x protein to 2570 and 2503ng/mg x protein, respectively. p-gp and mdr-1 mRNA were not down regulated. By contrast, rhu G-CSF and rhu GM-CSF had no effect on either K562/A02 or K562/S.
Conclusion:
rhu IFN or rhu IL-2 could partially restore the sensitivity of K562/A02 to DNR and elevate the intracellular DNR accumulation via a mechanism independent of p-gp or mdr-1 mRNA down-regulation.
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