Mitochondrial autophagosomes as a mechanism of drug resistance in breast carcinoma

ABSTRACTWe have previously described the process by which mitochondria donate their membranes for the formation of autophagosomes, and in this study we show that the same process could be involved in drug sequestration and exocytosis resulting in multidrug-resistant cancerous cells. We examine the implications of mitochondrial vesicle formation of mitoautophagosomes (MAPS) in response to the cytotoxic drug MKT-077, which targets mortalin, in a drug-resistant breast carcinoma cell line overexpressing P-glycoprotein (P-gp). The breast cancer cell line MCF-7Adr is derived from MCF-7, but differs from its ancestral line in tolerance of MKT-077-induced mitochondrial toxicity. Our ultrastructural observations suggest that autophagy in the MCF-7Adr cells entails regional sequestration of MKT077 in multilamellar LC3-labeled MAPS, which then separate from their mitochondria, and fuse with or engulf each other. MAPS appeared to be migrating through the cytoplasm and fusing with the plasma membrane, thus carrying ou...