Cancer cells may acquire drug resistance after prolonged chemotherapy. In many cases, cancer cells develop resistance to several drugs with distinct structures and modes of action. This multi-drug resistance phenomenon increases the complexity of cancer treatment.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have derived an Adriamycin-resistant cell line, NCI/ADR-RES, from human ovarian cancer cells. The parental cell line is OVCAR-8, obtained from a high-grade ovarian serous adenocarcinoma. NCI/ADR-RES is resistant to Adriamycin and found to express high levels of the Multi-Drug Resistance 1 (MDR1) protein – also known as P-glycoprotein. The cell line was extensively characterized and proven useful in identifying compounds subject to multi-drug resistance. NCI/ADR-RES was deposited into the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) Tumor Repository and added to the NCI-60 Human Tumor Cell Lines Screen, along with parental OVCAR-8. Molecular characterization data are publicly available on the DTP website.

NCI is seeking parties to non-exclusively license the ADR-RES cell line.

Competitive Advantages:

• Extensively characterized and documented human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line
• Part of the NCI anti-cancer drug screen human cell line panel (NCI-60 Human Tumor Cell Lines Screen)
• Molecular characterization data are publicly available

Commercial Applications:

• Research tool to study the multi-drug resistance phenomenon in cancer
• Research tool to study Adriamycin resistance in ovarian cancer
• Research tool to study the overexpression of MDR1 (P-glycoprotein) in cancer