Redefining the Relevance of Established Cancer Cell Lines to the Study of Clinical Anti-Cancer Drug Resistance

Although in vitro models have been a cornerstone of anti-cancer drug development, their direct applicability to clinical cancer research has actually been uncertain. Using a state-of-the-art Taqman-based qRT-PCR assay, we investigated the multidrug resistance (MDR) transcriptome of six cancer types, in both in vitro and in vivo samples. We studied 380 MDR genes, selected a priori based on an extensive curation of the literature published during the last three decades, in established cancer cell lines and clinical samples, either containing greater than 75% tumor cells or microdissected.

尽管体外（in vitro）模型一直是抗癌药物研发的核心基石，但其直接应用于临床癌症研究的适用性始终存在不确定性。本研究采用最先进的基于Taqman探针的实时定量逆转录聚合酶链反应（qRT-PCR）检测技术，对6种癌症类型的多药耐药（MDR）转录组进行了分析，样本涵盖体外（in vitro）与体内（in vivo）两类。我们针对380个多药耐药基因展开研究：这些基因是基于过去三十年发表的文献进行系统性梳理后预先筛选得到的，实验样本包括已建立的癌细胞系，以及肿瘤细胞占比超过75%或经显微切割处理的临床样本。