摘要(Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated gene (ATM) functions in control of cell cycle checkpoints in responding to DNA damage and protects cells from undergoing apoptosis. Knock-out within tumor cells of endogenous ATM will achieve therapeutic benefits and nable a better understanding of the decisive mechanisms of cell death or survival in response to DNA damaging agents. ) In present paper, we sought to characterize the cell cycle checkpoint profiles in U937-ASPI3K, a U937 cell mutant that was previously established with endogenous ATM knock-out phenotype. Synchronized U937-ASPI3K was exposed to 137Cs irradiation, G1, S, G2/M cell cycle checkpoint profiles were evaluated by determining cell cycle kinetics, p53/p21 protein, cyclin dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) and p34CDC2 kinase activity in response to irradiation. U937-ASPI3K exhibited multiple defects in cell cycle checkpoints as defined by failing to arrest cells upon irradiation. The accumulation of cellular p53/p21 protein and inhibition of CDK kinase was also abolished in U937-ASPI3K. It was concluded that the stable expression of anti-sense PI3K cDNA fragment completely abolished multiple cell cycle checkpoints in U937-ASPI3K, and hence U937-ASPI3K with an AT-like phenotype could serves as a valuable model system for investigating the signal transduction pathway in responding to DNA damaging-based cancer therapy.