Investigation on antiproliferative effects of interferon-α, 5-fluorouracil and hydroxyurea on human Burkitt lymphoma and erythroblastic leukemia cell lines

In this study, we investigated the growth inhibitory effects of IFN-α, 5-FU, HU and their combinations on Daudi (Human Burkitt lymphoma) and K562 (Human erythroblastic leukemia) cell lines. Sensitivity of two leukemia cell lines to IFN-α has shown large disparities. While Daudi cells were very sensitive to the antiproliferative effects of IFN-α, K562 cells were more resistant. After showing different degree of sensitivities of Daudi and K562 cells to IFN-α, we tested whether both cells showed similar responses against anticancer drugs such as 5-FU and HU. According to our results, Daudi cells were more resistant to the antiproliferative effects of 5-FU compared to K562. However, the initial antiproliferative effect of HU on K562 was less than that of Daudi cells. After showing the individual antiproliferative effects of IFN-α, 5-FU and HU, we investigated whether these cells can be over sensitized to combination treatment of 5-FU and HU along with IFN-α. To our results, on Daudi and K562 cells treated with IFN-α and 5-FU, the antiproliferative effect of IFN-α was diminished compared to the treatment with use of IFN-α alone in Daudi but not K562 cells. Treatment of the same cells with IFN-α and HU resulted in synergistic antiproliferative effect on K562 cells compared to the individual use of either drug. However, cotreatment of Daudi cells with IFN-α and HU diminished the antiproliferative effect of IFN-α compared to IFN-α use alone. Results presented here add new findings about the antiproliferative effects of IFN-α and its combinations with 5-FU and HU on human Burkitt lymphoma and human erythroblastic leukemia cells to medicine and science world. [Turk J Cancer 2002;32(1):12-19]