Inhibition of P-glycoprotein and recovery of drug sensitivity of human acute leukemic blast cells by multidrug resistance gene (mdr1) antisense oligonucleotides

To overcome the problem of multidrug resistance, we investigated the effectiveness of phosphrothioate antisense oligonucleotides (MDR1-AS) in suppressing multidrug resistance gene (mdr1) expression in drug-resistant acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) blast cells and the K562 adriamycin-resistant cell line K562/ADM. The percentage of cells with the mdr1 gene product P-glycoprotein (P-gp) was decreased from 100% to 26% by 20 mu mol/L MDR1-AS in the K562/ADM cells, and from 48.1% to 10.2% by 2.5 mu mol/L MDR1-AS in the AML blast cells. Western blot analysis also showed a decrease in the amount of P-gp in the MDR1-AS-treated K562/ADM cells. This effect was specific to MDR1-AS, and not observed with sense or random control oligonucleotides. The expression of mdr1 mRNA in K562/ADM and AML blast cells treated with MDR1-AS was decreased compared with the random control. Intracellular rhodamine retention and [H-3]daunorubicin also increased after antisense treatment. Chemosensitivity to daunorubicin increased in MDR1-AS-treated blast cells up to 5.9-fold in the K562/ADM cells and 3.0- to 6.4-fold in the AML blast cells. The expression of mdr1 mRNA derived from colony cells decreased in the MDR1-AS-treated groups. No inhibitory effect of the oligonucleotides on normal bone marrow progenitors was observed. These findings suggest that MDR1-AS is useful to overcome multidrug resistance in the treatment of leukemia. (C) 1998 by The American Society of Hematology.