Plasma enhance drug sensitivity to bortezomib by inhibition of cyp1a1 in myeloma cells

Background: Drug resistance is one of the major problems encountered in clinical therapy of multiple myeloma treatment. Combination treatment with several drugs may increase the sensitivity and overcome drug resistance. Methods: Here, we combined chemotherapy with a newly developed technology, cold atmospheric plasma, to enhance drug sensitivity. Results: We found that plasma treatment had a synergistic anti-cancer effect with a first line drug (bortezomib). Based on our previous study, we further found that plasma treatment could inhibit Notch pathway and down-regulate cyp1a1 expression and enzyme activity, which contributing to the enhanced drug sensitivity to bortezomib after combination of bortezomib with gas plasma. Conclusions: Our results showed a new strategy to overcome drug resistance by combination of traditional chemotherapy with cold atmospheric plasma.