Acquired resistance to auranofin in cultured human cells

A substrain (HEAF) of cultured human epithelial cells, grown as monolayers, was selected for resistance to auranofin (AF), a gold-containing anti-arthritic drug, by growing the parental HE cells with stepwise increased concentrations of AF in the medium. HEAF cells acquired resistance to 2 mumol AF/l, twice the concentration tolerated by the sensitive HE cells. Resistance to AF was also demonstrated in another substrain (HE100) originally selected for by its cadmium resistance, and characterized by a high cytosolic metallothionein (MT) content. Following continuous exposure to 2 mumol AF/l for 4 days, 58% of the HEAF cells, 67% of the HE100 cells, and 16% of the HE cells remained adherent to the flasks, compared with non-treated controls. Following 24 h AF exposure to living cells, HEAF cells had one-half and HE100 cells twice the cellular and cytosolic gold concentration per mg protein, as compared with HE cells. Gel filtration of cell cytosols revealed gold-binding proteins with a mol. wt. of about 10 000 apparently occurring on AF exposure in HEAF and HE cells. They bound 10-15% of cytosolic gold. MT in HE100 cells bound AF-gold to about the same extent. We suggest that the ability of cells to maintain the gold concentration at a low level (HEAF) and trapping of gold by MT (HE100) or low molecular weight proteins occurring on AF treatment (HEAF) may be mechanisms contributing to the observed cellular resistance to AF.