Kazumitsu Ueda

The identification and cloning of a segment of a human multidrug resistance gene (mdr1) was reported recently. To examine the molecular basis of one type of multidrug resistance, we have prepared RNA from human tumors and normal tissues and measured their content of mdr1 RNA. We find that the mdr1 gene is expressed at a very high level in the adrenal gland; at a high level in the kidney; at intermediate levels in the lung, liver, lower jejunum, colon, and rectum; and at low levels in many other tissues. The mdr1 gene is also expressed in several human tumors, including many but not all tumors derived from the adrenal gland and the colon. In addition, increased expression was detected in a few tumors at the time of relapse following initial chemotherapy. Although controlled clinical studies will be required, our results suggest that measurement of mdr1 RNA may prove to be a valuable tool in the design of chemotherapy protocols.

A neuropathological hallmark of Alzheimer disease (AD) is a widespread amyloid deposition. We analyzed the entire amino acid sequences in an amyloid preparation and found, in addition to the major beta/A4-protein (A beta) fragment, two unknown peptides. We raised antibodies against synthetic peptides using subsequences of these peptides. These antibodies immunostained amyloid in neuritic and diffuse plaques as well as vascular amyloid. Electron microscopic analysis demonstrated that the immunostaining was localized on amyloid fibrils. We have isolated an apparently full-length cDNA encoding a 140-amino-acid protein within which two previously unreported amyloid sequences are encoded in tandem in the most hydrophobic domain. We tentatively named this 35-amino acid peptide NAC (non-A beta component of AD amyloid) and its precursor NACP. NAC is the second component, after A beta, identified chemically in the purified AD amyloid preparation. Secondary structure predictions indicate that the NAC peptide sequence has a strong tendency to form beta-structures consistent with its association with amyloid. NACP is detected as a M(r) 19,000 protein in the cytosolic fraction of brain homogenates and comigrates on immunoblots with NACP synthesized in Escherichia coli from NACP cDNA. NACP mRNA is expressed principally in brain but is also expressed in low concentrations in all tissues examined except in liver, suggesting its ubiquitous and brain-specific functions. The availability of the cDNA encoding full-length NACP should help to elucidate the mechanisms of amyloidosis in AD.

Intrinsic and acquired multidrug resistance (MDR) is an important problem in cancer therapy. MDR in human KB carcinoma cells selected for resistance to colchicine, vinblastine, or doxorubicin (former generic name adriamycin) is associated with overexpression of the "MDR1" gene, which encodes P-glycoprotein. We previously have isolated an overlapping set of cDNA clones for the human MDR1 gene from multidrug-resistant KB cells. Here we report the construction of a full-length cDNA for the human MDR1 gene and show that this reconstructed cDNA, when inserted into a retroviral expression vector containing the long terminal repeats of Moloney leukemia virus or Harvey sarcoma virus, functions in mouse NIH 3T3 and human KB cells to confer the complete multidrug-resistance phenotype. These results suggest that the human MDR1 gene may be used as a positive selectable marker to introduce genes into human cells and to transform human cells to multidrug resistance without introducing nonhuman antigens.

Drug resistance in human cancer is associated with overexpression of the multidrug resistance (MDR1) gene, which confers cross-resistance to hydrophobic natural product cytotoxic drugs. Expression of the MDR1 gene can occur de novo in human cancers in the absence of drug treatment. The promoter of the human MDR1 gene was shown to be a target for the c-Ha-Ras-1 oncogene and the p53 tumor suppressor gene products, both of which are associated with tumor progression. The stimulatory effect of c-Ha-Ras-1 was not specific for the MDR1 promoter alone, whereas a mutant p53 specifically stimulated the MDR1 promoter and wild-type p53 exerted specific repression. These results imply that the MDR1 gene could be activated during tumor progression associated with mutations in Ras and p53.