Heterocyclic amines and genotype of N-acetyltransferases as risk factors for prostate cancer.

A variety of carcinogenic heterocyclic amines are produced during the cooking of meat at high temperatures. These carcinogens are metabolized by N-acetyltransferases (NAT), which are polymorphic in the population. This study examined associations between prostate cancer (PCa) and the consumption of different kinds of meat, heterocyclic amine intake and NAT genotypes. PCa patients and controls were recruited in the Syracuse, NY area. Levels of meat and heterocyclic amine intakes were determined from validated surveys and NAT genotypes were determined by the sequences of PCR-amplified DNA from buccal swabs. A total of 152 cases and 161 controls were eligible for analysis. There was an association between PCa and history of PCa in the first-degree blood relatives (OR = 4.59, 95% CI 2.21-9.70), and family history of bladder cancer (P < 0.02). However, there was no association with the history of other cancers. There was no association between PCa and either 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (MeIQx), 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP) intake, or NAT1 and NAT2 genotypes. However, there was a trend of association with MeIQx and with rapid NAT2 and NAT1*10 in combination with PhIP. A new NAT1 allele with a frequency of one out of 544 chromosomes was found in the Caucasian subjects.

The effect of cimetidine on the formation of sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine in patients with human immunodeficiency virus.

Hypersensitivity reactions from trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole are likely caused by a reactive nitroso intermediate formed from sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine. This pilot study tested whether cimetidine inhibits the urinary excretion of sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine. Ten outpatients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and currently receiving trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole prophylaxis were randomly selected from 59 eligible patients. Five received cimetidine 800 mg twice daily for 1 week and five served as controls. Two spot urine samples one week apart were obtained after a trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole dose for all patients. Patients taking cimetidine had a significant decrease in excretion of sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine relative to total excreted drug in the two urine samples compared with control patients. Cimetidine likely caused this decrease in sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine excretion through inhibition of CYP3A4. Because of potential differences between HIV-infected patients and healthy subjects in oxidative metabolism, future studies of inhibitors of sulfamethoxazole hydroxylamine formation should be conducted in the HIV population.

New developments in the use of cytokines for cancer therapy.

Cytokines, the pleiotropic immune regulatory proteins, are involved in the regulation of cell growth, differentiation and functional activation. Novel cytokines have been enumerated in rapid succession and entered the clinical arena. IL-2 is well recognized for its antitumor effects and is accepted therapy for numerous malignancies. IL-l and IL-11 are important as thrombopoetic factors while IL-6 has been introduced in clinical trials as a platelet growth factor and as an antitumor agent. IL-4 has shown growth inhibitory effects against many solid tumor cell lines in vitro, but its direct effect on human tumors in vivo remains to be explored. IL-7 may be an important addition to the current strategies of adoptive immunotherapy. IL-12 plays a fundamental role in activating antitumor cellular immunity. When given with tumor associated antigens, IL-12 has proven effective against many forms of metastatic solid tumors. Immunotoxins appear to be promising, though the antigenicity of the molecule and antibody development aspects remain to be resolved. The current review will focus on the clinical use of novel cytokines for the treatment of cancer.

Very high frequency electron paramagnetic resonance of 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy in 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine liposomes: partitioning and molecular dynamics.

Partitioning and molecular dynamics of 2,2,6,6,-tetramethylpiperedine-1-oxyl (TEMPO) nitroxide radicals in large unilamellar liposomes (LUV) composed from 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylcholine were investigated by using very high frequency electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Experiments carried out at a microwave frequency of 94.3 GHz completely resolved the TEMPO EPR spectrum in the aqueous and hydrocarbon phases. An accurate computer simulation method combined with Levenberg-Marquardt optimization was used to analyze the TEMPO EPR spectra in both phases. Spectral parameters extracted from the simulations gave the actual partitioning of the TEMPO probe between the LUV hydrocarbon and aqueous phases and allowed analysis of picosecond rotational dynamics of the probe in the LUV hydrocarbon phase. In very high frequency EPR experiments, phase transitions in the LUV-TEMPO system were observed as sharp changes in both partitioning and rotational correlation times of the TEMPO probe. The phase transition temperatures (40.5 +/- 0.2 and 32.7 +/- 0.5 degrees C) are in agreement with previously reported differential scanning microcalorimetry data. Spectral line widths were analyzed by using existing theoretical expressions for motionally narrowed nitroxide spectra. It was found that the motion of the small, nearly spherical, TEMPO probe can be well described by anisotropic Brownian diffusion in isotropic media and is not restricted by the much larger hydrocarbon chains existing in ripple structure (P beta') or fluid bilayer structure (L alpha) phases.

Sonochemical activation of hematoporphyrin: an ESR study.

The production of 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidone-N-oxyl by reaction of 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidone (TMPone) with ultrasonically generated active species in oxygenated solutions of hematoporphyrin (Hp) was studied by electron spin resonance spectroscopy. The nitroxide production rate in air-saturated TMPone solutions in phosphate-buffered saline of pH 9.0 was significantly higher in the presence of Hp than in its absence. The enhancement of nitroxide production by Hp was significantly inhibited in the presence of sodium azide or histidine in the solution. The production rate with Hp was doubled by substitution of deuterium oxide, while the rate without Hp increased only modestly. These results suggest that a substantial amount of active oxygen can be generated by ultrasound in aqueous solutions of Hp. Since the production rate was not reduced by mannitol and no nitroxide was produced in nitrogen-saturated solutions, it appears that hydroxyl radicals do not account for a major portion of the active oxygen species which reacted with TMPone to yield a nitroxide.

Kinetics of distribution of 5-doxylstearic acid in mouse lymphocytes.

The rate at which stearic acid nitroxide spin labels distribute through cells affects the interpretation of data obtained from these nitroxides. We used photoreduction of 5-doxylstearic acid (5DS) to determine the rate at which 5DS arrives at the outer half of the plasma membrane of mouse lymphocytes and macrophages. Our results show that 5DS is in equilibrium with the outer half of the plasma membrane of mouse lymphocytes over a time frame of 2 minutes or less. Thus, spectra data obtained from 5DS-labelled cells clearly reflects the spectrally averaged environment of all the cell membranes in lymphocytes and potentially other cells as well. This clarifies the observation that the spectral information obtained from doxylstearic acid nitroxides is relatively insensitive to environmental changes which would be expected to involve only the plasma membrane of the cell.

Viral transformation of baby hamster kidney cells affects the oxygen sensitivity of nitroxide reduction.

In order to explore and expand the potential applications of nitroxides, it is important to understand how nitroxides are metabolized by living systems. We studied the oxygen sensitivity of a BHK (baby hamster kidney) cell line and BHK cells that had been transformed by adenovirus to determine if the process of adenoviral transformation affects nitroxide metabolism. When the BHK cells are transformed by adenovirus, they reduce nitroxides essentially independently of oxygen concentration. In addition, the rate of reduction of the nitroxides decreases by a factor of 10 compared to the rate of reduction in BHK cells. These data suggest to us that the process of viral transformation has affected dramatically the metabolism of these cells; one possible interpretation is that the viral transformed cells lost the ability to perform oxidative phosphorylation. We believe that this is a metabolic event which could be exploited by magnetic resonance imaging.

Analysis of the reduction of nitroxides by flavin mononucleotide.

This article describes a simple method to prepare hydroxylamines from nitroxides by photo-activated flavin mononucleotide. The half-time of reduction varied from 2 to 38.4 s for a series of nitroxides. For most nitroxides short exposures to light (min) were sufficient to produce significant amounts of hydroxylamine; longer periods of exposure increased the yields of other products. Proxyl (2,2,5-trimethyl-5-alkylpyrrolidine-N-oxyl) nitroxides were unusually reactive with a much higher yield of products which could not be reoxidized by ferricyanide to the nitroxides. Optimum conditions for reversible reduction depend on the nitroxide and the amounts of other reducible substances such as oxygen and ferricyanide that may be present.

Direct measurement of the internal viscosity of sickle erythrocytes as a function of cell density.

The rotational dynamics of TEMPAMINE can be used to study directly the intracellular environment. The extracellular signal from TEMPAMINE is broadened away by the use of potassium ferricyanide which does not enter the cell. The EPR signal which results when 1 mM TEMPAMINE, 120 mM ferricyanide, and erythrocytes are mixed together arises from TEMPAMINE only in the intracellular aqueous space. The relative viscosity measured by the motion of TEMPAMINE in various control environments is: water at 37 degrees C = 1; human plasma at 37 degrees C = 1.1; internal aqueous environment of washed erythrocytes or whole blood at 37 degrees C = 4.92 +/- 0.32. Erythrocytes can be fractionated by density. In sickle-cell anemia (SS), the percentage of cells we find with density greater than 1.128 g/ml is 15-40%, in normals (AA) and sickle trait (AS) 1%. By direct spin-label measurements with TEMPAMINE we show, for the first time, that the relative internal viscosity (eta mu) of these dense erythrocytes is markedly elevated and density-dependent. Our results show that (1) eta mu increases with increasing cell density; (2) eta mu obtained from sickle cells is higher than eta mu obtained from normal cells at a given density, and this effect is greater at 37 degrees C than at 20 degrees C; (3) eta mu is proportional to MCHC, but eta mu in erythrocytes is higher than eta mu obtained from in vitro preparations of hemoglobin S at equivalent concentrations. We conclude that the relative internal viscosity of erythrocytes is affected by three factors: the state of cell hydration, the amount of hemoglobin polymer present, and the potential interactions of the cell membrane with intracellular hemoglobin.

Development of nitroxides for selective localization inside cells.

The use of nitroxides to measure intracellular phenomena, especially oxygen concentrations, is a new and potentially important approach to a number of physiological and pathophysiological studies. This study provides data indicating the feasibility of developing nitroxides that localize selectively in the intracellular compartment; it is based on the use of readily hydrolysed ester linkages, such that the nitroxides become converted intracellularly to ionic derivatives that do not cross cell membranes readily. Up to 120-fold increased concentrations of intracellular nitroxides (and their one electron reduction product, the hydroxylamines) were obtained. The ESR spectra of the intracellular nitroxides were consistent with their conversion to the ionic species. Preliminary studies indicate that these nitroxides have the properties needed for their use as probes of intracellular concentrations of oxygen and that it should be feasible to synthesize nitroxides that will be even more effective for this purpose.

Exchange and shuttling of electrons by nitroxide spin labels.

The ability of nitroxide spin labels to act as oxidizers of reduced nitroxides (hydroxylamines) in biological and model systems was demonstrated. All of the nitroxides tested were able to act as oxidizing agents with respect to hydroxylamine derivatives of nitroxides. The rates of these reactions were first order with respect to nitroxide concentration and with respect to hydroxylamine concentration, making the reaction second order overall. The second-order rate constants are reported for a number of these reactions. These reactions proceeded to an equilibrium state and the equilibrium constants for several combinations of reactants are presented. Both the rate constants and the equilibrium constants were found to be dependent on the ring structure of the nitroxide and hydroxylamine, with piperidines being reduced more easily and pyrrolidines and oxazolidines being oxidized more easily. All of the hydroxylamine derivatives were oxidized by air to their respective nitroxides, with the rate of this oxidation greater for pyrrolidines than for piperidines. Furthermore, hydroxylamines that are permeable to lipid bilayers were able to act as shuttles of reducing equivalents to liposome-encapsulated nitroxides that were otherwise inaccessible to reducing agents. This mechanism of shuttling of electrons was able to explain the relatively rapid reduction by cells of a nonpermeable nitroxide in the presence of a permeable nitroxide.

Effects of oxygen on the metabolism of nitroxide spin labels in cells.

The products of the reduction of nitroxides in cells are the corresponding hydroxylamines, which cells can oxidize back to the nitroxides in the presence of oxygen. Both the reduction of nitroxides and the oxidation of hydroxylamines are enzyme-mediated processes. For lipid-soluble nitroxides, the rates of reduction are strongly dependent on the intracellular concentration of oxygen; severely hypoxic cells reduce nitroxides more rapidly than cells supplied with oxygen. In contrast, the rates of oxidation of hydroxylamines increase smoothly with increasing intracellular oxygen concentration up to 150 microM. In order to separate the effects on the rates of metabolism of nitroxides due directly to oxygen from effects due to the redox state of enzymes, we studied the cells under conditions in which each of these variables could be changed independently. Oxygen affects the metabolism of these nitroxides primarily by interacting with cytochrome c oxidase to change the redox state of the enzymes in the respiratory chain. Our results are consistent with the conclusions that in these cells reduction of lipophilic nitroxides occurs at the level of ubiquinone in the respiratory chain in mitochondria, and oxidation of the corresponding hydroxylamines occurs at the level of cytochrome c oxidase.

Distribution of 5-doxylstearic acid in the membranes of mammalian cells.

Concentration-dependent spin broadening of ESR spectra of the nitroxide 5-doxylstearic acid has been used to evaluate the distribution of 5-doxylstearic acid in the membranes of intact mouse thymus-bone marrow (TB) and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. TB cells, CHO cells, erythrocytes, and isolated plasma membranes from CHO cells were labelled with 5-doxylstearic acid and the peak to peak linewidths of the central line of the resulting ESR spectra were measured. The measured line widths were linearly dependent on the amount of 5-doxylstearic acid incorporated into the sample over the range of 0-0.18 mol nitroxide per mol lipid. In erythrocytes, the relationship between linewidths approximated a linear function at lower concentrations of 5-doxylstearic acid, up to 0.07 mol nitroxide per mol lipid. The amount of broadening of the central line for a given amount of 5-doxylstearic acid was far less for intact cells than for either erythrocytes or plasma membrane, indicating that the 5-doxylstearic acid samples a much larger lipid pool in the intact cells. With the broad assumption that the mobility of the 5-doxylstearic acid is similar in different membranes, the size of the lipid pool sampled by 5-doxylstearic acid is approximately equal to the total cellular lipid in intact cells. If a given concentration of 5-doxylstearic acid sampled only the plasma membrane of TB or CHO cells, we would expect to see a linewidth corresponding to a 12-20-fold greater local concentration of 5-doxylstearic acid than was observed, since the plasma membranes of CHO and TB cells represent only 5-8 percent of the total cellular lipid. Therefore, the 5-doxylstearic acid must distribute into most or all cellular membranes of intact cells and is not localized in the plasma membrane alone.

Kinetics of enzyme-mediated reduction of lipid soluble nitroxide spin labels by living cells.

Nitroxide spin labels can be reduced to the corresponding hydroxylamines in cells. The selective action of inhibitors, and thermal and chemical inactivation demonstrate that the reduction of nitroxides in cells is an enzymatic or enzyme-mediated process. The kinetics of reduction of doxylstearates are affected by the position of the doxyl moiety along the stearic acid chain. The doxyl moiety of 5-doxylstearate is close to the membrane surface, and its reduction is first order with respect to the nitroxide, whereas the doxyl moieties of 10- and 12-doxylstearate are in the membrane hydrocarbon region and their reduction is a zero-order process. The reduction of 16-doxylstearate which usually has a mixture of first- and zero-order kinetics becomes zero order with addition of an extracellular broadening agent, potassium trioxalatochromiate(III). These results suggest that the rate of reduction of doxyl moieties is controlled by their accessibility to reducing equivalents, i.e., the rate-limiting step for the reduction of the doxyl moiety deep in the membrane is the diffusion of reducing equivalents within or into the membrane. The reduction of doxylstearates in cells is inhibited by rotenone but not antimycin A, cyanide, propyl gallate or SKF-525A. It appears that the reduction of doxylstearates takes place at the level of the ubiquinone in the respiratory chain in mitochondria in these cells.

Cellular metabolism of water-soluble nitroxides: effect on rate of reduction of cell/nitroxide ratio, oxygen concentrations and permeability of nitroxides.

In order to interpret more accurately studies that have used nitroxides and to improve the efficacy of the use of nitroxides in both basic studies of cells and as contrast agents for in vivo NMR, we have initiated a systematic study of the distribution and metabolism of nitroxides in biological systems. Overall, the results provide a reasonably coherent picture of some aspects of the interactions between nitroxides and cells. Reduction of the nitroxides appears to be an intracellular process, so that one of the principal variables that affects the rate of reduction is the ability of a nitroxide to enter cells. The entrance of nitroxides into cells shows considerable variability and ranges from essentially no penetration (e.g., 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl-4-trimethylamine), through rates that are comparable to rates of reduction (e.g., 2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-pyrrolidine-N-oxyl-3-carboxylic acid), to rates that are so fast that there is complete equilibrium between intracellular and extracellular compartments (e.g., Tempone). The presence of a charged group on the nitroxide appears to be the important variable that affects their ability to enter cells. Once a nitroxides enters the cell, the structure of the nitroxide, e.g., piperidine vs. pyrrolidine ring, is major factor that affects the rate of reduction. The rates of reduction increase with increasing concentrations of nitroxides. This indicates that the principal mechanism(s) of reduction do not saturate in the concentration range we studied. We observed no abrupt changes in the rates of reduction over the entire concentration range of cells and nitroxides that we studied, which suggests that the mechanism(s) of nitroxide reduction did not change. The presence of oxygen decreased the observed rate of reduction of many of the nitroxides and this effect was independent of the concentration of nitroxide.

Hypoxia-sensitive NMR contrast agents.

The rate of reduction of nitroxides is shown to be more rapid in hypoxic cells. The rate of reduction and the effect of hypoxia on the reduction rate vary for different nitroxides. These findings indicate that it may be feasible to develop in vivo NMR contrast agents that selectively will indicate areas of hypoxia and thereby aid in the detection of disease processes such as neoplasia, ischemia, and inflammation.

Measurement of intracellular oxygen concentration using the spin label TEMPOL.

We have developed a noninvasive method with general applicability for measuring intracellular oxygen using the spin label TEMPOL (2,2,6,6,-tetramethypiperidine-N-oxyl-4-ol) which has superhyperfine structure in its electron spin resonance spectra that is broadened in the presence of oxygen. This broadening is linear over a range of 1 to 6 ppm oxygen which covers the important physiological range of oxygen concentration. Viscosity, TEMPOL concentration, and instrument modulation intensity also can affect superhyperfine structure but the contributions from these effects can be determined. The TEMPOL distributes equally into the intra- and extracellular compartments but its intracellular signal can be studied selectively by addition of transition metal ions such as potassium ferricyanide and potassium tris(oxalato)chromiate, which broaden away the signal from extracellular TEMPOL and do not cross the cell membrane to affect the intracellular TEMPOL. Results with a cell culture line (mouse thymus-bone marrow) indicate that under our experimental conditions these cells may maintain an average intracellular oxygen concentration lower than the extracellular oxygen concentration, and that there is not a constant relationship between extracellular and intracellular oxygen concentrations.

A comparison of the spin labels MAL-3 and TEMPAMINE for measuring the internal microviscosity of human erythrocytes.

In a recent paper, Daveloose et al. (Daveloose, D., Fabre, G., Berleur, F., Testylier, G. and Letterrier, F. (1983) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 763, 41-49) described a technique to measure the internal microviscosity of erythrocytes using the spin label MAL-3 (2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-3-malimidopyrrolidinyl-N-oxyl) to supercede the use of TEMPAMINE (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl-4-amine)ferricyanide. They cite the long time (12 h) required for TEMPAMINE to enter the erythrocyte interior and the 'unphysiological' nature of the potassium ferricyanide required to isolate the TEMPAMINE signal inside the erythrocytes as reasons for developing this technique. In the present work, the penetration of TEMPAMINE into the erythrocyte interior is found to be pH-dependent and on the order of seconds, not hours. The slow penetration of TEMPAMINE described by Daveloose et al. probably is a result of their using trimethylTEMPAMINE which is membrane-impermeable. High concentrations of ferricyanide do affect red cell morphology in a reproducible fashion. The internal microviscosity as measured by TEMPAMINE reflects this. MAL-3 does not. Sample preparation time using TEMPAMINE-ferricyanide is about 1 min compared to about 40 min for the MAL-3 technique. In the presence of ferricyanide or ascorbate, MAL-3-labeled cells show slow loss of signal intensity which indicates that MAL-3 leaks out of the cells. Both the TEMPAMINE-ferricyanide and MAL-3 techniques have advantages and disadvantages.

Rapid measurement of drug release from temperature-sensitive liposomes by electron paramagnetic resonance and radioisotope techniques.

We have developed two new methods for quantifying drug release from temperature-sensitive liposomes. Large unilamellar vesicles were made by the reverse phase evaporation process. They contained a water-soluble electron paramagnetic resonance probe, trimethyl-4-amino-2,2,6,6-tetramethyl piperidine N-oxyl and the radioisotope cytosine-[3H]1-beta-D-arabinofuranoside in their aqueous compartment. Release of the electron paramagnetic resonance probe was measured by placing the liposomes in a solution of a spin label quenching agent, potassium ferricyanide, and monitoring the reduction in signal strength. The measurement of radioisotope released involved rapid ultracentrifugation of the liposomes after which the supernatant was tested for the presence of radioactivity. Both methods were found to be rapid and convenient ways of measuring drug release from temperature-sensitive liposomes and both methods gave comparable results. The radioisotope assay provides a direct measurement of drug leakage, whereas the electron spin resonance assay provides a continuous marker for liposome stability as a function of temperature.