Although cellular experiments have elucidated a number of active principles in the study of the multidrug resistance (MDR) phenomena, most of the drug resistant tumor cells were derived from different parental cell lines. This fact limits generalization of some experimental data and conclusions, and therefore we selected and characterized cell lines resistant to various anti-cancer agents derived from four parental cell lines: CEM (human T-lymphoblastic leukemia), K562 (human myeloid leukemia), A549 (human lung adenocarcinoma) and MDAMB 231 (human breast adenocarcinoma). In total we obtained a set of 42 resistant sublines, which is an excellent tool for the future studies of different aspects of MDR. In this study we report on some basic characteristics of these sublines, namely, cross-resistance to other anti-cancer drugs investigated by in vitro MTT assay, expression of MDR associated proteins (Pgp, MRP1, LRP, GST-pi and Topo IIalpha) as well as the functional activity of Pgp and MRP.