Rumyantseva G V, Weiner L M
Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion, Novosibirsk, USSR.
FEBS Lett. 1988 Jul 18;234(2):459-63. doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(88)80138-8.
The hydroxyl radical has been spin trapped in microsomal and purified NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase systems in the presence of adriamycin, daunomycin and mitomycin C. The presence of a lag period in quinone-stimulated spin-adduct formation is associated with oxygen removal upon its reduction to H2O2. The hydroxy radical generation has been stimulated by the Fe-EDTA complex and completely inhibited by catalase. The mechanism of redox transformations of anthracyclines in a microsomal system has been proposed The single electron reduced quinone-containing anticancer antibiotics play the following roles: (i) they reduce oxygen to H2O2 and (ii) they reduce the ferric ions necessary for H2O2 decomposition with hydroxyl radical formation.