Taxol and cisplatin are the two most effective agents discovered to date for treating advanced-stage cancer of the ovary. Learning how best to combine these agents is the focus of preclinical and clinical studies conducted at a number of institutions. Taxol's effect on cellular sensitivity to cisplatin was studied in paired cisplatin-sensitive A2780 and cisplatin-resistant A2780/CP70 human ovarian cancer cell lines. Cisplatin growth curves were generated under conditions of specific sequencing with Taxol, and IC50s (concentrations at which growth is inhibited to 50% of control) for cisplatin were obtained and compared. Taxol was used at an IC10 dose in all experiments. Taxol treatments were for 24 hours and cisplatin treatments were for 1 hour in all experiments. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was the diluent for all Taxol stock solutions. Separately, the effects of Taxol and DMSO on cisplatin cellular accumulation were measured. End points reported include measures of cytotoxicity and Taxol effects on cisplatin cellular accumulation. Using a microculture tetrazolium assay, cisplatin growth curves were obtained under the influence of Taxol, at a Taxol dose of 3 nM for both cell lines. DMSO alone had no effect on tumor cell growth. In A2780 cells, the influence of Taxol on cisplatin cytotoxicity was modest, whereas cisplatin-induced cell kill was augmented 1.5-fold when cisplatin was given immediately after Taxol. In A2780/CP70 cells, Taxol augmented cisplatin-induced cell kill by 30-fold when cisplatin was given immediately after Taxol; 75-fold when cisplatin was given 24 hours after completion of Taxol; and 19-fold when cisplatin was given 48 hours after completion of Taxol.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)