Comparison of the Effects on Reversal of Multi-Drug Resistance of 5-Bromotetrandrine and Tetrandrine in K562/A02 Cell Line in Vivo and in Vitro

Objective This study was to compare the reversal effect of 5-bromotetrandrine (BrTet) with Tetrandrine (Tet) when combined with ADM on multidrug resistance cell line K562/A02 and to investigate the reversal mechanism of this new derivative.

Methods The protein levels of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) were detected by fluorospectrophotometry and Western blot. The mRNA levels of P-gp were determined by RT-PCR. The in vivo effect of Tet was investigated using nude mice grafted with sensitive human leukemia cell line K562 and MDR cell line K562/A02.

Results Flow cytometry assay showed that 1.0 μMol/L BrTet significantly increased the apoptosis percentage. BrTet also enhanced the intracellular accumulation of ADM in K562/A02 cells and its potency was greater than that of Tet at the same concentrations. BrTet inhibited the overexpression of P-gp and down regulated MDR1 mRNA expression in K562/A02 cells in a dose-dependent manner. In nude mice bearing K562 xenografts on the left flank and K562/A02 xenografts on the right flank, i.p. injection of 10 mg/kg BrTet significantly enhanced the antitumor activity of ADM against K562/A02 xenografts with inhibitory rates of 26.1%, while ADM alone inhibited the growth of KBv200 xenografts by only 5.8%.

Conclusion BrTet showed significant MDR reversal activity in vitro and in vivo. Its activity may be related to the inhibition of P-gp overexpression and the increase in intracellular accumulation of anticancer drugs, which lead to more K562/A02 cells apoptosis.