TY - JOUR TI - COMPARATIVE DOSIMETRY OF O-6-METHYLGUANINE IN HUMANS AND RODENTS TREATED WITH PROCARBAZINE AU - SOULIOTIS, VL AU - VALAVANIS, C AU - BOUSSIOTIS, VA AU - PANGALIS, GA and AU - KYRTOPOULOS, SA JO - Journal of Carcinogenesis PY - 1994 VL - 15 TODO - 8 SP - 1675-1680 PB - Oxford University Press SN - 1477-3163 TODO - 10.1093/carcin/15.8.1675 TODO - null TODO - The accumulation of O-6-methylguanine (O-6-meG) in the DNA of blood leukocytes of 21 Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients (followed for up to 12 cycles of treatment) treated in the context of MOPP combination chemotherapy with 150 mg procarbazine daily for 10 days was examined and compared to that observed in rats treated with different doses of procarbazine as a single agent once per day for 10 days. In humans, the adduct accumulated in a dose-related fashion and appeared to approach a steady-state after 7-8 days of treatment. Adduct levels on day 10 of the treatment cycle averaged 0.25 +/- 0.09 (mean +/- SD) mu mol/ molG and, for different individuals, covered a 3-fold range. Intra-individual variability between different treatment cycles was much more limited than inter-individual variability, the two parameters accounting for 8.9% and 84.5% respectively of adduct variance at a constant cumulative dose. Comparison of the dose-response relationships for humans and rats indicates that, under conditions of no depletion of O-6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT), O-6-meG accumulates in blood leukocyte DNA of humans at a rate which is only approximately 2-fold lower than in rats, implying that, to the extent to which O-6-meG contributes to the genotoxic activity of procarbazine, human susceptibility to it is likely to be comparable to that of the rat. This is likely to be true also of the bone marrow (the tissue of interest as a target tissue for leukaemogenesis), since the tissue distribution of O-6-meG induced by low doses of procarbazine in rats, mice and rabbits indicated that blood leukocyte levels of this adduct closely reflect those in the bone marrow. Based on these results, it is estimated that by the end of a MOPP chemotherapy cycle O-6-meG reaches levels of the order of 0.2-0.3 fmol/mu g DNA (0.3-0.5 mu mol/molG) in human bone marrow (the target tissue of leukaemogenesis observed after such treatment). ER -