Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The H69CIS200 cisplatin-resistant and H69OX400 oxaliplatin-resistant cell lines developed as part of this study, are novel models of low-level platinum resistance. These resistant cell lines do not have common mechanisms of platinum resistance such as increased expression of glutathione or decreased platinum accumulation. Rather, these cell lines have alterations in their cell cycle allowing them to proliferate rapidly post drug treatment in a process known as ‘regrowth resistance’. This alteration in cell cycle control has come at the expense of DNA repair capacity. The resistant cell lines show a decrease in nucleotide excision repair and homologous recombination repair, the reverse of what is normally associated with platinum resistance. The alterations in these DNA repair pathways help signal the G1/S checkpoint to allow the cell cycle to progress despite the presence of DNA damage. The decrease in DNA repair capacity has also contributed to the development of chromosomal alterations in the resistant cell lines. Similarities in chromosomal change between the two platinum resistant cell lines have been attributed to inherent vulnerabilities in the parental H69 cells rather than part of the mechanism of resistance. The H69CIS200 and H69OX400 resistant cells are cross-resistant to both cisplatin and oxaliplatin. This demonstrates that oxaliplatin does not have increased activity in low-level cisplatin-resistant cancer. Oxaliplatin resistance also developed more rapidly than cisplatin resistance suggesting that oxaliplatin may be less effective than cisplatin in the treatment of SCLC. The resistant cell lines have also become hypersensitive to taxol but show no alterations in the expression, polymerisation or morphology of tubulin. Rather, the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is involved in both platinum resistance and taxol sensitivity as both are reversed with rapamycin treatment. mTOR is also phosphorylated in the resistant cell lines indicating that platinum resistance is associated with an increase in activity of this pathway. The mechanism of regrowth resistance in the platinum-resistant H69CIS200 and H69OX400 cells is a combination of activation of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling and alterations in control of the G1/S cell cycle checkpoint. However, more work remains to determine which factors in these pathways are governing this novel mechanism of platinum resistance.

Thesis (Master of veterinary science)--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 13-17).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Irene Weber, committee chair; John Houghton, Giovanni Gadda, committee members. Electronic text (186 p. : ill. (some col.)) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Dec. 20, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-180).

Cancer is one of the major causes of death in the western world. Resistance to anti-cancer drugs and diagnostic difficulties are major obstacles to successful treatment. This thesis describes studies based on microarray expression analysis and high-throughput compound screening for identification of resistance mechanisms, drug targets and diagnostic markers. In paper I-IV, we applied global expression analysis and measurements of drug response in a human tumor cell line panel to identify drug targets and resistance mechanisms. In paper I, we identified gene transcript levels that correlate with drug resistance and sensitivity. Both well known and new potential markers and mechanisms were identified. In paper II, we showed that STAT1 activity is associated with cross-resistance to both doxorubicin and radiation in vitro and that fludarabine can counteract STAT1 activity and reduce resistance. In Paper III-IV, cell lines were exposed to a compound library consisting of more than thousand different substances in a high-throughput screening effort. These studies revealed that cell line models of squamous cell carcinoma (Paper III) and drug resistant myeloma (Paper IV) are sensitive to phosphodiesterase inhibitors and glucocorticoids respectively. The target molecules for these drugs were over-expressed at the mRNA level and constitute likely explanations for the observed drug potency. In paper V, we identified mRNA markers for the distinction between two types of thyroid tumors, thyroid follicular adenomas and thyroid follicular carcinomas, by means of microarray expression analysis. Our results indicated that distinction between the two tumor types is possible with a small number of markers.

Continuous-time Markov chains (CTMC's) form a convenient mathematical framework for analyzing random systems across many different disciplines. A specific research problem that is often of interest is to try to predict maximum probability sequences of state transitions given initial or boundary conditions. This work shows how to solve this problem exactly through an efficient dynamic programming algorithm. We demonstrate our approach through two different applications - ranking mutational pathways of HIV virus based on their probabilities, and determining the most probable failure sequences in complex fault-tolerant engineering systems. Even though CTMC's have been used extensively to realistically model many types of complex processes, it is often a standard practice to eventually simplify the model in order to perform the state evolution analysis. As we show here, simplifying approaches can lead to inaccurate and often misleading solutions. Therefore we expect our algorithm to find a wide range of applications across different domains.

This study was conducted to assess the incidence of infectious drug resistance among animal strains of Escherlchia coli. Fecal samples were examined from a cattle feedlot southeast of Muncie, Indiana. The use of tetracycline and sulfonamide compounds as feed additives was a common practice on this farm, and theoretically could provide the antibiotic pressure necessary to select for resistant strains. A total of 32 feedlot E. coli were isolated from the feedlot floor. In addition, 10 strains of E. coli isolated from patients with urinary tract infections were introduced into this investigation for comparative purposes. All isolates were tested for antibiotic susceptibility using disc-diffusion methods. Multiple resistant strains were designated as donor organisms and were used in conjugation experiments with an antibiotic sensitive recipient E. coli; wild type K-12 F-.Multiple drug resistance occurred among 21.8 percent of the feedlot E. coli isolated, with a predominance of resistance to chlorotetracycline, tetracycline, and sulfathiazole. Three out of seven multiple resistant donors isolated were able to transfer their antibiotic resistance markers to the recipient K-12 strain. Transferable drug resistance among the clinical isolates occurred in 6 of the 10 donor resistant strains, with tetracycline and ampicillin being the most frequently encountered resistance.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is known to be highly resistant to chemotherapy. Transporters, which regulate the influx and efflux of substrates across the plasma membrane, may play a role in PC drug resistance. ABC transporters are a large family of transmembrane proteins with diverse physiological functions, several of which play major roles in cancer drug resistance. Given that 90% of PC express a mutant K-ras oncogene and that PC are highly hypoxic, I postulated that constitutive K-ras activation and/or hypoxia may correlate with ABC transporter expression, which in turn may promote drug resistance in PC. Using normal and PC cell lines either overexpressing mutant K-ras or subjected to hypoxic treatment, mRNA expression was profiled for 48 ABC transporters. My findings indicate that expression of mutant K-ras and hypoxic treatment, as well as long-term exposure to chemotherapy, may contribute to the development of drug resistance in PC cells in part by inducing the expression of ABC transporters. Similar to ABC transporters, I investigated whether amino acid transporters would mediate drug resistance in PC. The xc" amino acid transporter (xc") mediates cellular uptake of cystine for the biosynthesis of glutathione, a major detoxifying agent. Because the xc" has been regulates the growth of various cancer cell types, and x," is expressed in the pancreas, I postulated that the xc" may be involved in growth and drug resistance in PC. The xc" transporter is differentially expressed in normal pancreatic tissues and is overexpressed in PC in vivo. UsingPC cell lines, I found that cystine uptake via the N.: was required for growth and survival in response to oxidative stress, and that expression of the xc" correlated with gemcitabine resistance. Accordingly, inhibition of xc" expression via siRNA reduced PC cell proliferation and restored sensitivity to gemcitabine. I also identified the anti-inflammatory drug sulfasalazine as a mixed inhibitor of the x,-, which acts to inhibit cell proliferation via reducing xc" activity and not by reducing NFKB activity. My findings thus indicate that the xc" plays a role in PC growth in part by contributing to glutathione synthesis to promote PC cell proliferation, survival, and drug resistance.

Antimonpräparate sind seit über 60 Jahren der Standard zur Behandlung der Leishmaniose. Immer häufiger kommt es jedoch zum Therapieversagen durch resistente Erreger. In Indien sprechen über 60 % der erstmalig mit Antimonpräparaten behandelten Patienten nicht mehr auf die Therapie an (Sundar et al., 2000). Obwohl dies ein großes Problem darstellt, ist bisher wenig über die Resistenzmechanismen der Parasiten bekannt. Durch die Aufklärung dieser Mechanismen könnten zwei Hauptziele erreicht werden: i) Es könnten optimierte Medikamente entwickelt werden, die die Resistenzmechanismen der Parasiten umgehen. ii) Es könnten diagnostische Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, um vor Beginn einer Therapie deren Erfolgschancen zu kalkulieren. So würde man dem Patienten die starken Nebenwirkungen sowie die Kosten der Antimontherapie ersparen. Desweiteren könnte sofort mit einer wirkungsvollen Therapie begonnen und somit die Zeitspanne verkürzt werden, in der der infizierte Patient ein Reservoir für die weitere Transmission der Parasiten darstellt. In Vorarbeiten wurde durch genetische Komplementation das Gen LbrM20_V2.0210 (Lbr_0210) vorläufig identifiziert, das bei Überexpression Antimonresistenz vermittelt (Dissertation A. Nuehs, 2010). Diese Arbeiten wurden mit Leishmania braziliensis durchgeführt. Direkt benachbart befindet sich ein strukturell sehr ähnliches Gen, LbrM20_V2.0200 (Lbr_0200). Beide Gene wurden bei den vorangegangenen Sb(III)-Selektionen untersucht. Hierbei konnte ausschließlich Lbr_0210 als resistenzvermittelnd identifiziert werden. Datenbankrecherchen ergaben, dass es zu Lbr_0210 je ein direktes orthologes Gen in Leishmania infantum und Leishmania major gibt. Das Ziel des ersten Teils dieser Doktorarbeit war es, die resistenzvermittelnde Funktion des zu Lbr_0210 orthologen Gens aus L. infantum, LinJ34.0220, in unterschiedlichen Leishmania-Spezies zu verifizieren. Es war vor allem wichtig die Frage zu beantworten, ob das Gen auch im pathogenen Stadium des Parasiten, also in intrazellulären Amastigoten, Resistenz gegenüber Pentostam®, einem Standardmedikament, vermittelt. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit sollte das Protein strukturell und zellbiologisch charakterisiert werden, um Hinweise auf den Resistenzmechanismus zu erhalten. Durch den Vergleich mit dem zu Lb_0200 orthologen Gen aus L. infantum, LinJ34.0210, sollten Hinweise auf die unterschiedlichen Aufgaben der Proteine gesammelt werden.

Failure of chemotherapy in cancer patients because of development of drug resistance is a major problem. Alterations of DNA repair mechanisms and drug targets are among the important resistance mechanisms which are developed against topoisomerase II inhibitors etoposide and doxorubicin. Modifications in the expression levels of mismatch repair (MMR) genes due to resistance to topoisomerase II inhibitors are involved in breast cancer. In this study, etoposide resistant sublines were developed from MCF7 breast cancer cell line (MCF7/S) and the expression levels of TOP2A and two important MMR genes MSH2 and MLH1 were examined by real time qPCR. Previously developed doxorubicin resistant cells were also studied for comparison. Etoposide resistant sublines MCF7/1000E, MCF7/1250E and MCF7/2000E were approximately 2, 3 and 4 fold resistant relative to parental MCF7/S cells, respectively. MLH1, MSH2 and TOP2A expressions decreased in both etoposide and doxorubicin resistant sublines relative to MCF7/S cells. Expression levels of TOP2A in resistant sublines differ between 10-95 percent of the expression levels in the parental cells. In the sublines MCF7/200E, MCF7/500E, MCF7/750E and MCF7/1000E a decrease in TOP2A gene expression was determined. In sublines MCF7/1250E and MCF7/2000E fluctuations in the expression levels were observed. Among the doxorubicin resistant sublines (MCF7/600D and MCF7/1000D), in MCF7/1000D which is more resistant to doxorubicin, TOP2A expression level was higher. Expression levels of MSH2 decreased regularly as the resistance increased. However, in MCF7/1250E significant increase relative to MCF7/1000E was observed. In MCF7/2000E, expression levels of MSH2 again significantly decreased to 41 percent of the levels in parental cell line. Expression levels of MLH1 decreased significantly (18-58 percent) in etoposide resistant sublines relative to MCF7/S cells. In doxorubicin resistant sublines, a decrease in MLH1 gene expression was observed in MCF7/1000D. It can be concluded from the results that decrease in the expression levels of TOP2A, MSH2 and MLH1 genes may contribute to resistance together. Above a certain resistance level, sublines may develop new strategies for acquiring higher resistance. Whenever a strategy becomes limited, new strategies emerge. New approaches developed to overcome resistance in cancer chemotherapy should consider the molecular basis of resistance in different stages of the disease.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-117). Also available in print.