Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to L K Keefer.
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As part of an investigation of the structural requirements for the induction, by phenobarbital-type inducers, of a coordinate pleiotropic response consisting of increases in hepatic cytochrome P450 2B (P450 2B) activity, increases in other phase I and II enzyme activities, and liver hypertrophy, we have examined a series of analogues of phenobarbital in which the ethyl/phenyl substitution at the sp3 carbon of the parent molecule was kept constant while the heterocyclic portion of the molecule was modified. The induction of hepatic P450 2B protein and ethoxy-, pentoxy-, and (benzyloxy)resorufin O-dealkylation activities, and epoxide hydration activity and liver/body weight ratio increase were examined in male F344/NCr rats fed the various congeners for 14 days at doses equimolar to 500 ppm phenobarbital. Increases in the measured parameters were maximal in rats fed phenobarbital or 5-ethyl-5-phenylhydantoin. The responses to primidone or 2-ethyl-2-phenylsuccinimide were approximately 65% of maximal, while glutethimide yielded a response approximately 50% of maximal. Induction of this response in rats fed the ring-opened and decarboxylated analogues, (ethylphenylacetyl)urea and 2-ethyl-2-phenylmalonamide, were < 25% of maximal. 5-Ethyl-5-phenyloxazolidinedione caused minimal increases in the measured end points when administered at a dose equimolar to 500 ppm phenobarbital. The profound differences among the congeners in ability to induce P450 2B protein and associated catalytic activities were not due to differences in food consumption by the various groups of rats.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
To refine our understanding of the mutational spectra one might expect on exposure of human cells to nitric oxide (NO), we have treated the plasmid pSP189 at pH 7.4 with two compounds that generate NO spontaneously in solution, and then sequenced the mutations found when the treated plasmid was transfected into human Ad293 cells and allowed to replicate. G.C-->A.T transitions were the most abundant mutation observed with these NO donor drugs, whereas in previous work, A.T-->G.C transitions predominated when nitric oxide gas was bubbled through the plasmid solution under otherwise identical conditions. A difference in reactive intermediates formed in solution- versus gas-phase NO exposure was demonstrated by treating buffered 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) (ABTS) or ferrocyanide, in the presence or absence of azide, aerobically with preformed solutions of NO, with solutions of the two NO-releasing compounds, or with gaseous mixtures of equimolar NO/O2 in air; oxidation of these substrates was extensive with the gas-phase NO source whether azide was present or not, while azide almost completely quenched the oxidation pathway in the solution-phase reactions.
Deamination of cytosine to uracil is a potential source of mutations in DNA. Here we examine the deaminating ability of aerobic nitric oxide (NO) toward single-stranded DNA at very low (micromolar and below) total exposures, using a sensitive genetic method that allows us to study a single deamination event at a specific site in a 7200-nucleotide DNA molecule within a pool of ca. 100,000 other identical DNA molecules. We incubated gapped C141 M13mp2 DNA with the NO-generating compound, Et2N[N(O)NO]Na (DEA/NO), in aerobic buffer for 16 h to ensure complete autoxidation at pH 7.4 and 37 degrees C. After ultrafiltration to remove small molecules, the DNA was transformed into isogenic Escherichia coli cultures that were either deficient (NR9404, ung-) or proficient (MC1061, ung+) in uracil-DNA glycosylase activity. The gapped DNA was constructed such that the target (CCC) codon was contained in a short single-stranded segment of otherwise double-stranded circular DNA, and the incubation was performed in a closed system to prevent loss of NO to the atmosphere before the reaction was complete. An increase in the reversion frequency in the ung- strain was noted between 0 and 1 microM DEA/NO, and the reversion frequency leveled out between 3 and 30 microM. However, 30 microM "spent" DEA/NO (i.e., that which was similarly incubated for 4 h to complete the autoxidation of NO before the DNA was added) did not increase reversion frequency relative to control. Nearly all (42/43) of the mutations identified after 1 microM DEA/NO treatment were C-->T transitions, and reversion frequency in the isogenic ung+ strain was lower than in the ung- strain. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that total NO exposures in the mumol/L range can lead to C-->T mutations via a mechanism most probably involving deamination of DNA cytosine residues.
The single-dose toxicokinetics of monomethylamine has been characterized in the rat by HPLC assay of serial blood samples. Biphasic first-order elimination was observed following an iv bolus dose of 19 mumol/kg with a terminal half-life of 19.1 +/- 1.3 min (mean +/- SE, N = 4). The apparent steady state volume of distribution, systemic blood clearance, and renal blood clearance were 1.21 +/- 0.09 liter/kg, 53.4 +/- 3.5 ml/min/kg, and 5.72 +/- 0.53 ml/min/kg, respectively. The administration of an intragastric dose permitted the calculation of the systemic bioavailability of monomethylamine as 69 +/- 3%. Duplicate experiments using the structural analogue with deuterium atoms substituted for hydrogens on the methyl group revealed a much slower elimination of the compound, although ultimately, 5 times as much was excreted unchanged in the urine. Isotope effects calculated as the ratios of terminal half-life, systemic blood clearance, and systemic bioavailability were 1.9, 2.2, and 1.8, respectively.
The effect of deuterium substitution on the metabolism of formaldehyde and formate to carbon dioxide in vivo was examined. Four groups of male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected ip with carbon-14-labeled formaldehyde, formaldehyde-d2, sodium formate, or sodium formate-d at doses of 0.67 mmol/kg. Similar rates of labeled carbon dioxide exhalation were observed for the four groups of animals, the cumulative excretion of 14CO2 in breath reaching 68-71% of the theoretical value 12 hr after injection in all cases. Plots of amount remaining to be excreted showed that the metabolism was biexponential, with half-lives of approximately 0.4 and 3 hr for the two phases for each of the four compounds. Competitive experiments in which equimolar mixtures of CH2O with CD2O or HCO2- with DCO2- were injected also failed to reveal a substantial isotope effect, although the cumulative conversion of formate to carbon dioxide was significantly higher than that of its deuterated analog at four time points in the middle of the 8-hr mixed-isotope experiment. The data indicate that deuterium substitution has little or no effect on the rates and extents of in vivo oxidation of these 1-carbon species to carbon dioxide, although a small decrease of up to 10% in reactivity under the conditions employed cannot be excluded. The results support the use of carbon dioxide exhalation data in the measurement of deuterium isotope effects on oxidative demethylation reactions such as those that occur in the activation of the carcinogen, N-nitrosodimethylamine.
A new animal model for the causation of liver tumors via a bacterial infection presented itself fortuitously in the form of a new species, Helicobacter hepaticus. This species of Helicobacter colonizes the hepatic bile canaliculi in susceptible strains of mice, resulting in hepatitis and hepatocellular and hepatocholangiolar adenomas and carcinomas. The mechanism by which this infection leads to cancer is unknown. Tests with Helicobacter hepaticus have revealed thus far that the bacteria do not secrete a mutagen which is capable of detection by the Ames Assay. Measurement of oxidatively damaged bases in the liver DNA of hepaticus infected mice have shown accumulation of 8-oxodeoxyguanosine with disease progression. Other promutagenic DNA lesions, 7-methylguanine and O6-methylguanine, indicative of nitrosation of endogenous amines by nitric oxide, were not detected. Analysis of carcinomas and adenomas taken from H. hepaticus infected A/JCr mice revealed no mutations in ras oncogenes or in exons 5-8 of the p53 gene. These preliminary results indicate that a non-genotoxic tumor promotion mechanism, possibly implemented by reactive oxygen species from the immune response, is more likely than a genotoxic mechanism.