RNA disruption is associated with response to multiple classes of chemotherapy drugs in tumor cell lines

Narendrula, Rashmi; Mispel-Beyer, Kyle; Guo, Baoqing; Parissenti, Amadeo M.; Pritzker, Laura B.; Pritzker, Ken; Masilamani, Twinkle; Wang, Xiaohui; Lannér, Carita

To further support the induction of apoptosis in A2780 cells in response to docetaxel, we examined the effect of docetaxel treatment on caspase-3 activity at 24, 48, and 72 h following treatment. Figure 8a shows that caspase-3 activity increased in response to docetaxel at 24 h and this response persisted through 72 h. The possible connection between docetaxel-induced caspase-3 activation and RNA disruption was then investigated by treating A2780 cells with docetaxel in the absence or presence of the caspase-3 inhibitor (Q-DEVD-Oph). As shown in Fig. 8b , suppression of caspase-3 activity by Q-DEVD-Oph was evident beginning at 24 h after co-treatment with docetaxel, but a statistically significant reduction in caspase-3 activity was only apparent at 72 h (Fig. 8b) .