Adenovirus-mediated antisense telomerase with cisplatin increased the susceptibility of cisplatin resistant ovarian cancer cell line

Abstract

Telomerase adds telomeric repeats to chromosomal ends and is known to play an important role in carcinogenesis through cellular immortalization. Since telomerase is an essential pathogenomic factor in malignant tumors, inhibiting telomerase activity is thought to be possible to make telomerase positive tumors more sensitive to cisplatin treatment, which is effective in ovarian cancers, but clinical success is limited by chemo-resistance. In the present study, cisplatin-sensitive ovarian cancer cell line A2780 and cisplatin-resistant A2780/cp70 cell line were infected with antisense telomerase adenovirus Ad-OA. It was found that the Ad-OA suppressed ovarian cancer cell growth and this effect was mainly due to the induction of caspase-dependent apoptosis. Next, we infected the cisplatin resistant ovarian cancer cell line A2780/cp70 with Ad-OA and cisplatin concurrently. Interestingly, cisplatin treatment with Ad-OA was more effective to cisplatin-induced cell death in A2780/cp70 cells compared to cisplatin or the vector group only. These data suggest that cisplatin treatment with Ad-OA may be a new chemo-sensitizer for cisplatin resistant ovarian cancer.