Preliminary studies on the effect of zinc and selenium on vanadium-induced cytotoxicity in vitro.

In the present work, we investigated the cytotoxicity of vanadium and the influence of zinc and selenium on vanadium-dependent cell damage in the BALB/c 3T3 cell culture. Treatment of cells for 24 hours with medium containing 50, 100 and 200 microM NaVO3 caused a significant decrease in the cell viability as measured by MTT test. Furthermore, the assays for reactive oxygen species (NBT reduction and phenol red oxidation) demonstrated the increase in superoxide and hydrogen peroxide production. In the cotreatment studies, the cells were exposed to NaVO3 (50, 100 and 200 microM) in the presence of nontoxic concentrations of ZnCl2 (5 microM) or Na2SeO3 (0.5 microM). Following 24 h incubation, the cell viability (assessed in MTT assay) and reactive oxygen species generation were evaluated. Our data suggest that zinc and selenium, in the concentrations mentioned above, provide no protection against adverse actions induced by sodium metavanadate at concentration levels of 50, 100 and 200 microM. To our knowledge, this is the first report from in vitro studies on interaction between pentavalent vanadium and trace elements that function as antioxidants: zinc and selenium.