BMI-1 is highly expressed in M0-subtype acute myeloid leukemia.

Recent studies have suggested that one of the polycomb group genes, BMI-1, has an important role in the maintenance of normal and leukemic stem cells by repressing the INK4a/ARF locus. Here, we quantitatively examined BMI-1 expression level in samples from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and other hematologic malignancies. Moderate to high BMI-1 expression was detected in AML patients, and the BMI-1 expression levels in AML samples were significantly higher than in normal bone marrow controls (P = .

Costunolide induces differentiation of human leukemia HL-60 cells.

Costunolide has been reported to be a cytotoxic and chemopreventive agent. This work investigated the mechanism of the antiproliferative effect of costunolide and determined that it induced differentiation of the human leukemia cell line HL-60. Costunolide exhibited a potent antiproliferative activity against HL-60 cells.

Involvement of multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 in in vivo cisplatin resistance of rat hepatoma AH66 cells.

We previously showed that the rat ascites hepatoma cell line AH66 is cisplatin resistant in vivo, but not in vitro. We further found that the expression of multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 (MRP2) in AH66 cells harvested from tumor-bearing rats was markedly decreased after incubation for 48 hours in medium containing 5% fetal bovine serum (5% FBS DMEM), and that the expression recovered when the cells were re-inoculated into rats. To examine whether the in vivo cisplatin resistance of AH66 cells is related to modulation or the expression of MRP2, we used AH66 cells transfected with pBK-CMV expression vector containing MRP2 antisense DNA.

Modulation of mdr1a and CYP3A gene expression in the intestine and liver as possible cause of changes in the cyclosporin A disposition kinetics by dexamethasone.

We investigated the effect of dexamethasone (DEX) on the disposition kinetics of cyclosporin A (CyA) and the mechanism of this drug interaction. Rats were treated with DEX (1 or 75mg/kg per day, i.p.