Factors affecting the genotoxic potency ranking of natural anthraquinones in mammalian cell culture systems

We had reported that the plant-derived 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone derivatives, emodin and danthron, were clearly genotoxic in mouse lymphoma L5178Y cells, whereas chrysophanol was only weakly genotoxic and physcion not at all. Danthron was more potent than emodin. Furthermore, we had found that these compounds bound non-covalently to DNA and inhibited topoisomerase II activity. Interestingly, in these systems emodin was more potent than danthron. This inversion of the ranking prompted us to investigate the underlying mechanism. Since emodin shows a high serum-protein binding affinity, horse serum used as a media-supplement in the mouse lymphoma genotoxicity assays was analyzed for a potential selective scavenging of emodin. Non-covalent DNA-binding in mouse lymphoma L5178Y cells was investigated in the absence or presence of serum. In the presence of 10% serum, the DNA-binding potency of emodin was markedly reduced and was lower than that of danthron. We also applied mutation assays with mouse lymphoma cells and AS52 cells and varied the serum concentration used. In the absence of serum emodin showed slightly higher mutagenicity in AS52 cells than danthron. At reduced serum concentration (0.5%) emodin was strongly cytotoxic to the mouse lymphoma cells. For chrysophanol and physcion, a considerable reduction of the non-covalent DNA-binding potency in intact cells was found when compared to danthron, in concordance with their lower genotoxic potency. Overall, these data support the understanding that the genotoxicity of anthraquinones is, at least in part, mediated by non-covalent DNA-binding.