Potentiation of bleomycin-induced chromosome aberrations by the radioprotector reduced glutathione.

In this study we investigated whether the radioprotector reduced glutathione (GSH) can reduce the frequency of chromosome aberrations induced by the radiomimetic antitumour drug bleomycin (BLM) in muntjac lymphocytes in vitro. Our results demonstrate that, instead of yielding any protection, the presence of GSH potentiates the clastogenic action of BLM. A significant enhancement in the frequency of rearrangements and deletions was observed and the number of aberrations per metaphase was also enhanced. We suggest that this potentiation may be due to GSH acting as a reducing agent in reactivating oxidised BLM.