Resistance to etoposide, which was expressed following exposure of a human tumour cell line (HN-I) to fractionated X-irradiation (II fractions to a total dose of 50Gy), was found to be exhibited after delivery of only 5 fractions (total dose of 22.5Gy). In addition, 2 new etoposide-resistant sublines of these HN-I cells have been developed by continuous exposure in vitro to sublethal drug concentrations. No significant differences in growth characteristics were shown between all these resistant sublines and the parental line. The drug-treated line, HN-I/VP-2, expressed cross resistance to vincristine, adriamycin and daunomycin, and marginal cross resistance to vinblastine and cisplatin. The X-irradiation-treated subline (HN-I/DXR-II) also proved cross-resistant to vincristine and marginally cross-resistant to vinblastine, but showed unaltered responses to adriamycin and daunomycin, and expressed marginal collateral sensitivity to cisplatin. Comparisons of drug-uptake characteristics showed that only the HN-I/VP2 cells and not the HN-I/DXR-II cells had reduced uptake of vincristine, vinblastine and daunomycin. However, etoposide uptake was not altered in either resistant subline. Further investigations have shown that the approximately 4-fold level of resistance to etoposide in these HN-I/VP-2 and HN-I/DXR-II cells was associated with a reduction in etoposide-induced DNA single-strand breakage. However, repair of these lesions, after drug removal, was rapid and similar in the parental and drug-resistant sublines, with 50% having resealed within 20-26 min. Resistance to etoposide was also associated with significantly elevated (p less than 0.01) glutathione peroxidase activity in both sublines, whilst glutathione S-transferase activity was marginally elevated (117%) only in the HN-I/DXR-II cells. There were no significant alterations in total glutathione levels. These results suggest that not only do patterns of response to anti-tumour drugs differ depending upon the agent employed to "induce" resistance, but that multiple mechanisms appear to be associated with these altered responses.