Drug accumulation into single drug-sensitive and drug-resistant prostate cancer cells conducted on the single cell bioanalyzer

Multidrug resistance (MDR) occurs in prostate cancer, and this happens when the cancer cells resist chemotherapeutic drugs by pumping them out of the cells. MDR inhibitors such as cyclosporin A (CsA) can stop the pumping and enhance the drugs accumulated in the cells. The cellular drug accumulation is monitored using a microfluidic chip mounted on a single cell bioanalyzer. This equipment has been developed to measure accumulation of drugs such as doxorubicin (DOX) and fluorescently labeled paclitaxel (PTX) in single prostate cancer cells. The inhibition of drug efflux on the same prostate cell was examined in drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cells. Accumulation of these drug molecules was not found in the MDR cells, PC-3 RX-DT2R cells. Enhanced drug accumulation was observed only after treating the MDR cell in the presence of 5 μM of CsA as the MDR inhibitor. We envision this monitoring of the accumulation of fluorescent molecules (drug or fluorescent molecules), if conducted on single patient cancer cells, can provide information for clinical monitoring of patients undergoing chemotherapy in the future.