The metabolites of the cardioprotective drug dexrazoxane do not protect myocytes from doxorubicin-induced cytotoxicity.

The clinically approved cardioprotective agent dexrazoxane (ICRF-187) and two of its hydrolyzed metabolites (a one-ring open form of dexrazoxane and ADR-925) were examined for their ability to protect neonatal rat cardiac myocytes from doxorubicin-induced damage. Dexrazoxane may protect against doxorubicin-induced damage to myocytes through its strongly metal-chelating hydrolysis product ADR-925, which could act by displacing iron bound to doxorubicin or chelating free or loosely bound iron, thus preventing site-specific iron-based oxygen radical damage. The results of this study showed that whereas dexrazoxane was able to protect myocytes from doxorubicin-induced lactate dehydrogenase release, neither of the metabolites displayed any protective ability. Dexrazoxane also reduced apoptosis in doxorubicin-treated myocytes. The ability of dexrazoxane and its three metabolites to displace iron from a fluorescence-quenched trapped intracellular iron-calcein complex was also determined to see whether the metabolites were taken up by myocytes. Although ADR-925 was taken up in the absence of calcium in the medium, in the presence of calcium, its uptake was greatly slowed, presumably because it formed a complex with calcium. Both of the one-ring open metabolites were taken up by myocytes and displaced iron from its complex with calcein. These results suggest either that the anionic metabolites do not have the same access to iron pools in critical cellular compartments, that their uptake is slowed in the presence of calcium, or, less likely, that dexrazoxane protects by some other mechanism.