DNA damage in normal and neoplastic mouse tissues after treatment with misonidazole in vivo.

Alkaline elution has been used to examine the integrity of DNA isolated from various tissues from mice treated with misonidazole (MISO). High doses (1-3 mg/g) of MISO caused extensive DNA strand breakage in cells isolated from two fibrosarcoma tumors that were known to contain hypoxic cells, and also in cells from certain normal tissues (liver and kidney in particular). The incidence of strand breaks gives further support to the suggestion that MISO can be metabolically nitroreduced beyond the singly reduced nitro radical-anion in some normal tissues as well as in hypoxic tumor cells, generating DNA-reactive species. Nitroreductases must therefore be able to compete successfully with molecular oxygen for the MISO nitro radical-anion in such tissues.