Mechanisms of adenine nucleotide depletion from endothelial cells exposed to reactive oxygen metabolites.

When human umbilical vein endothelial cells were prelabeled with [14C]-adenine and then exposed to xanthine oxidase (40 mU/ml) and hypoxanthine (100 microM) for 4 h, cellular adenine nucleotides were depleted (18 +/- 3% of total radioactivity vs. 61 +/- 10% in controls), nucleotides appeared in the culture medium (8 +/- 3% vs. 4 +/- 3%) together with the catabolic products inosine, hypoxanthine, and uric acid (74 +/- 4% vs. 35 +/- 11%). In the presence of H2O2 (100 microM) for 30 min, cellular nucleotides were depleted (46 +/- 25%) and catabolic products appeared in the medium (40 +/- 26%), but radioactive nucleotides in the medium were unaltered. In the presence of an inhibitor of ecto-5'-nucleotidase [alpha, beta-methylene-adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP), 0.5 mM], exposure to xanthine oxidase and hypoxanthine resulted in the appearance of three times more nucleotides in the culture medium than in the absence of the inhibitor, but there was no change in medium nucleotides after H2O2 exposure. In the presence of an inhibitor of adenosine deaminase (2-deoxycoformycin, 2 microM), both exposures caused an accumulation of adenosine in the medium, calculated to represent a minimum of 25% of nucleotide catabolism. We conclude that exposure to both a superoxide-generating system (hypoxanthine plus xanthine oxidase) and H2O2 induce catabolism of adenine nucleotides, which mainly takes place through adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP) deaminase. However, superoxide but not H2O2 also causes membrane damage and leakage of nucleotides into the medium.