STUDY OF UPREGULATION OF DRUG RESISTANCE IN H460 LUNG CANCER CELLS VIA MICROCHANNEL DEVICE

Abstract

Metastasis is the main reason of high mortality rates in cancer patients. Treating these patients becomes difficult once the cancer has metastasized, especially due to their drug resistance. Drug resistance is a common problem that occurs when treating cancer patients, as in most cancer types, the cells are capable of drug efflux. This makes treatments like chemotherapy ineffective. Therefore, it is important to find alternative methods of treatment that can effectively kill drug resistant cancer cells. Lung cancer is one type of cancer that is the second most diagnosed cancer in the U.S. In this study, microchannels were used to mimic metastasis H460 lung cancer cells. Confined-migrating and non-migrating (2D control cells) were separated. Through Western blotting and some analysis, it was found that there is a high chemo-resistance in cancer cells that is correlated to increased p-glycoproteins in physical confinement. Calcitriol was also used to pre-treat the cells and it was found they are capable of reversing chemo-resistance. This can lead to new therapies being developed with the use of calcitriol. In addition, this study shows the value that microchannels devices can contribute to cancer resistant studies.