Amplification of doxorubicin mutagenicity by cupric ion

There is a presumption that copper and anthracycline drugs will interact with DNA to produce genotoxicity. This is of concern because serum copper levels are increased in certain neoplastic diseases. To test the interaction, it was determined if the metal ion could alter the mutagenesis of doxorubicin and related drugs in the Salmonella microsome test. In the standard form of the test, doxorubicin was strongly mutagenic against frame-shift-sensitive strain TA98. When cupric acetate was added with doxorubicin it amplified the mutagenesis of the antineoplastic with an increase of approximately 19% in peak mutagenic values. This apparent “chemoactivation” was evaluated by additional applications of the Salmonella test. Preincubation of cupric acetate, drug, and bacteria (± rat liver S9 fraction) also resulted in a copper-amplifying effect. In the preincubation method copper produced a drug concentration-related increase of more than 700% in the mutagenicity of doxorubicin. This large an increase occurred without S9 in the test. The effects observed in TA98 were not seen with TA102, a strain sensitive to oxidation mechanisms. Copper amplification in the mutagenicity of a positive control, aflatoxin B 1, was also observed with TA98 but these effects were not seen with the chelator, EDTA, the antifolate antineoplastic drug, methotrexate, or a test negative amino acid, methionine. Results point to a direct frameshift mechanism to explain the increase in mutagenicity with copper. Amplification of mutagenicity found in this study provides initial experimental support that anthracycline-metal ion-DNA associations might contribute to genotoxicity as has been inferred in the literature.