Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 7(7), p. e40816, 2012
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040816
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Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, especially vorinostat, are currently under investigation as potential adjuncts in the treatment of neuroblastoma. The effect of vorinostat co-treatment on the development of resistance to other chemotherapeutic agents is unknown. In the present study, we treated two human neuroblastoma cell lines [SK-N-SH and SK-N-Be(2)C] with progressively increasing doses of doxorubicin under two conditions: with and without vorinsotat co-therapy. The resultant doxorubicin-resistant (DoxR) and vorinostat-treated doxorubicin resistant (DoxR-v) cells were equally resistant to doxorubicin despite significantly lower P-glycoprotein expression in the DoxR-v cells. Whole genome analysis was performed using the Ilumina Human HT-12 v4 Expression Beadchip to identify genes with differential expression unique to the DoxR-v cells. We uncovered a number of genes whose differential expression in the DoxR-v cells might contribute to their resistant phenotype, including hypoxia inducible factor-2. Finally, we used Gene Ontology to categorize the biological functions of the differentially expressed genes unique to the DoxR-v cells and found that genes involved in cellular metabolism were especially affected.