Differential repair of O4-alkylthymidine following exposure to methylating and ethylating hepatocarcinogens.

Recent experiments have demonstrated that O6-alkylguanine is rapidly removed from hepatocyte DNA following continuous exposure to 1,2-dimethylhydrazine or diethylnitrosamine. In contrast, O4-ethyldeoxythymidine accumulates to concentrations more than 50 times greater than O6-ethyldexyguanosine. Studies on the formation and persistence of O4-methyldeoxythymidine in vivo have not been reported. This study reports the development of sensitive radioimmune assays to O4-methyldeoxythymidine and O4-ethyldeoxythymidine. Utilizing this method, the accumulation and removal of O4-methyldeoxythymidine and O4-ethyldeoxythymidine in liver DNA from rats exposed to 1,2-dimethylhydrazine or diethylnitrosamine were measured. The results demonstrated that O4-methyldeoxythymidine was formed at an O6-methylguanine/O4-methyldeoxythymidine ratio of approximately 100/1 and was repaired with a half-time of approximately 20 h. In contrast, O4-ethyldeoxythymidine removal was 13 times slower with a t 1/2 of approximately 11 days after both pulse dose and cessation of continuous DEN administration. Combined with previously reported data, results presented here suggest that (i) despite a lower rate of formation, O4-methyldeoxythymidine becomes nearly equal in importance to O6-methylguanine as a promutagenic adduct in hepatocytes from continuously exposed rats and (ii) differential repair of O4-alkylthymidine adducts provides a mechanism that may explain in part the superior ability of ethylating versus methylating agents to induce hepatocellular carcinomas in the rat.