Mechanism of differential sensitivity to cisplatin in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Cisplatin is used in the treatment of many tumours, including nasopharyngea l carcinoma (NPC). In this study, we studied two nasopharyngeal cancer cell fines with a four-fold difference in sensitivity to cisplatin. Following e xposure to cisplatin, the sensitive SUNE1 cell line underwent apoptosis whi le the relatively resistant CNE1 line died through mitotic cell death. No d ifferences were seen in telomere length or in the cell cycle distribution a fter cisplatin treatment. However; there was an increase in Bm levels in th e sensitive cell fine SUNE1, while in the resistant line CNE1 that did not undergo apoptosis, Bax levels fell Our results suggest that upregulation of Bax is associated with the sensitivity of these NPC cells to cisplatin.