Radiation resistance in a multidrug resistant human T-cell leukemia line

In clinical practice, cancers refractory to chemotherapy commonly appear to be comparatively radioresistant. One mechanism by which cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy is pleiotropic multidrug resistance, characterized by cross resistance to a number of otherwise unrelated heterocyclic antineoplastic agents, including vinca alkaloids, anthracyclines, dactinomycin, and others. We have studied a drug sensitive human leukemia cell line, CEM; a pleiotropic multidrug resistant subline of CEM, CEM/VLB100; VLB-1, a drug sensitive revertant subline arising during in vivo passage of CEM/VLB100; and a methotrexate resistant subline of CEM, CEM-MTX. Using soft-agar colony formation after graded doses of X rays as an endpoint, we found that CEM, CEM-MTX, and CEM/VLB100 had similar terminal slopes (D0 = 0.66 Gy). However, the CEM/VLB100 survival curve had a broader initial shoulder (n = 3.0, Dq = 0.75 Gy) than did CEM (n = 1.6, Dq = 0.25 Gy) or CEM/MTX (n = 1.0, Dq = 0 Gy), suggesting that CEM/VLB100 has an increased capacity to repair radiation-induced DNA damage. This was tested by comparing the cell lines' abilities to accumulate sublethal damage. In split dose recovery experiments, CEM/VLB100 demonstrated increased ability to repair sublethal radiation damage following fractionated irradiation compared with the CEM parental line. Although it no longer demonstrated multidrug resistance, VLB-1 still displayed diminished radiation sensitivity. On the basis of these and other investigators' results, we suggest that diminished radiation sensitivity is separate from, but can be closely associated with, the multidrug-resistant phenotype.