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Chinese hamster ovary cells stably expressing a rat dopamine transporter (designated D8 cells) and neuroblastoma SK-N-SH cells were used as two model systems to study dopamine neurotoxicity. Within 24 h, 1-10 mM dopamine induced D8 cells into apoptosis while 20-200 microM dopamine induced SK-N-SH cells into cell death. The viability of both cell types decreased in a dose-dependent manner. However, the dopamine uptake activity of D8 cells at 10 mM was not significantly higher than the uptake at 100 microM, suggesting that it was not the high concentration of intracellular dopamine that induced D8 cells into apoptosis, but rather dopamine found in the extracellular space. Furthermore, cocaine, an inhibitor of dopamine uptake, could not block cell death induced by dopamine. Forskolin, an agonist of protein kinase A (PKA), stimulated dopamine uptake in D8 cells and blocked apoptosis induced by the drug. These results suggest that the dopamine transporter mediates a dopamine-dependant apoptotic signal transduction pathway that is independent of dopamine uptake into the cell.

Certain hexavalent chromium compounds are documented human carcinogens. Exposure of cells to particulate forms of chromium results in cell-enhanced dissolution of particles in the extracellular microenvironment and chronic production of chromium oxyanions, which are taken up by the cell through an anion transport system and are genotoxic and clastogenic. It was previously shown that apoptosis is the mode of cell death of nearly all of the Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO-AA8 cell line), which die after high-dose, short-term treatments with soluble sodium chromate. In this report the mode of cell killing by particulate lead chromate and of low-dose continuous treaments of soluble sodium chromate designed to mimic conditions of ionic chromate uptake after lead chromate exposure was examined. CHO-AA8 cells were treated for 24 hr with doses of sodium chromate or lead chromate which cause a 50% decrease in survival in colony-forming effeciency assays. Longer treatments (up to 72 hr) at the same doses did not decrease survival further than the 24-hr exposure. Morphological changes indicative of apoptosis, as well as internucleosomal DNA fragmentation, were detectable by 24 hr after treatment with lead chromate or soluble sodium chromate. All of the cells killed by treatments with lead chromate particles underwent apoptosis as the mode of cell death and this was accurately modeled in cell culture by continuous treatments with low-dose soluble sodium chromate. Exposure of cells to hexavalent chromium compounds causes a spectrum of DNA damage which can be selectively altered by pretreatment of cells with antioxidant vitamins prior to chromium exposure. Here we show that ascorbate and alpha-tocopherol markedly inhibited the chromosomal aberrations induced by both particulate and soluble chromate compounds, even though chromium adduct levels were not decreased by either vitamin pretreatment. Cell survival assays showed that ascorbate, but not alpha-tocopherol, protected cells from apoptosis induced by sodium chromate. The results differentiate chromium-induced apoptosis from both chromosomal damage and adduct levels and suggest that other lesions sensitive to ascorbate but not tocopherol are the proximal inducing signal for chromium-induced apoptosis., (Copyright 1997 Academic Press.)

The time course and characteristics of the selective hypoxic cytotoxicity of the 2-nitroimidazole model compound 1-methyl-2-nitroimidazole (INO2) were analysed during prolonged time periods (up to 5 days post treatment). When control populations were seeded at the same cell density as drug-treated cells, they entered confluency at day 3 and underwent apoptosis at day 5, which appeared to be mediated by an autocrine mechanism. In subsequent studies of drug-treated cells, the seeding density of treated cells was adjusted to avoid this cell confluency effect. Treatment with a low INO2 concentration (2.5 mM) resulted in apoptotic DNA fragmentation (ladders), which was observed 4-5 days after an acute 6-h hypoxic drug exposure. In contrast, at a high INO2 concentration (40 mM) for 2 h, which was equitoxic to the low concentration, no characteristic DNA ladders were observed. Fluorescence microscopy revealed apoptotic bodies and pyknotic nuclei 5 days following hypoxic 2.5 mM INO2 exposure, whereas 40 mM INO2 hypoxic treatment produced cellular ghosts devoid of DNA 5 days after exposure, consistent with the DNA ladder results. However, characteristic apoptotic morphology was previously observed immediately after the acute hypoxic exposure of 40 mM INO2. Cell cycle analysis and DNA fragmentation as measured by the TdT assay suggested that dose-dependent differences in the apoptotic response occur post exposure after an equitoxic acute hypoxic exposure to either the low or the high INO2 concentration. This dose-dependent differential in response may be attributed to the degree of initial DNA damage as measured by the comet assay.

Hygromycin B, an aminoglycoside antibiotic that is widely used to establish stable mammalian cell lines that carry a bacterial gene conferring resistance to the drug, is shown here to induce apoptotic programmed cell death in susceptible cells. Dying cells exhibited typical features of apoptosis, including cell shrinkage, membrane blebbing, nuclear pyknosis, and extensive internucleosomal fragmentation of DNA. Employing concentrations of hygromycin B that are typically used for selecting stable cell lines, we show that susceptible cells die rapidly, exhibiting the morphological properties of apoptosis by 18 h and detectable DNA fragmentation as early as 2 h after receiving the drug. G418, on the other hand, required days to cause cell death, which was not accompanied by internucleosomal DNA fragmentation. Apoptotic cell killing by hygromycin B did not require expression of wild-type p53 and was suppressed by both Bcl-2 and the Adenovirus type 5 E1B 19-kDa protein.