Survivin or XIAP through transfection with the Survivin or XIAP

Cancer cells developing multidrug resistance (MDR) is one of the most serious clinical problems responsible for the failure of cancer chemotherapy. P-glycoprotein (P-gp) overexpression and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) overexpression in cancer cells are the two common mechanisms of MDR. However, the relationship between IAPs and P-gp in MDR cancer cells is unknown. We investigated the expression levels of two IAPs, Survivin and XIAP, and their interaction with P-gp in MDR cancer cells. We have found that the human epidermoid carcinoma cells KBv200 and breast cancer cells MCF-7/Adr overexpress not only P-gp but also XIAP and Survivin, and showed high resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs doxorubicin, docetaxel and vincristine, in contrast to their parental cells KB and MCF-7. Furthermore, upregulation of Survivin or XIAP through transfection with the plasmid pECFPN1-Survivin or pcDNA3-6myc-XIAP in these four cell sublines did not affect the P-gp expression. Downregulation of Survivin or XIAP through transfection with the Survivin or XIAP siRNA did not have an effect on the P-gp expression in these resistant cells. Additionally, our immunoprecipitation results showed that Survivin or XIAP did not directly bind to P-gp. In summary, our study suggested that the overexpression of Survivin and XIAP in MDR cancer cells does not directly interact with P-gp.