Establishment of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma cell lines useful for analysis of chemosensitivity and carcinogenesis

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is usually associated with a poor prognosis, with most patients dying within a few months. The mechanism of its carcinogenesis is unclear, and its rapid growth and spread often prevent effective surgical therapy. Thus, chemotherapy is necessary. However, ATC is often resistant to anticancer drugs. Therefore, prediction of chemosensitivity is important in selecting appropriate treatment. In this study, after the establishment of three cell lines (K119, KOA2, and IAA) from patients with ATC, we analyzed them for abnormalities in certain oncogenes (myc, ras, ret, and c-erbB2) and the p53 tumor suppressor gene. Only one of three cell lines (KOA2) had a N-ras mutation [codon 61 CAA(Gln)-->CGA(Arg)] and a p53 gene mutation [exon 6 codon 192 Caa(Gln)-->TAG(stop)]. We also investigated their in vitro drug sensitivity and compared it with clinical chemosensitivity, retrospectively. In vitro drug sensitivity was determined using an adhesive tumor cell culture system. Only the K119 cells were sensitive to adriamycin and cisplatin in vitro. The other two were resistant to them in vitro. These results paralleled the clinical responses. We also evaluated the in vitro drug sensitivity of a poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma cell line (SMP) and papillary thyroid carcinoma cell lines (NPA). None of the five cell lines expressed the multidrug resistance gene (mdr-1). In conclusion, we established ATC cell lines that are suitable models for characterizing the nature of multidrug resistance and carcinogenesis.