Drug conjugate of doxorubicin with glutathione is a potent reverser of multidrug resistance in rat hepatoma cells.

A recent study has suggested that degraded adducts smaller than 2 kDa in molecular weight of bovine serum albumin (BSA)-conjugated doxorubicin (DXR) (BSA-DXR) might exhibit cytotoxicity against multidrug resistant (MDR) cells. To investigate this notion further, intracellular accumulation and cytotoxicity of DXR coupled to several small peptides, such as glycylglycine (diGly), glycylglycylglycine (triGly), reduced glutathione (GSH) and oxidized glutathione (GSSG), were investigated using DXR-sensitive (AH66P) and DXR-resistant (AH66DR) rat hepatoma cell lines. Against both AH66P and AH66DR cells, diGly-conjugated DXR (diGly-DXR) and triGly-conjugated DXR (triGly-DXR) demonstrated the same cytotoxic activity as DXR, and the accumulation of both conjugates in the two cell lines was almost similar to that of DXR. After treatment of AH66DR cells with 5 microM verapamil [an inhibitor of P-glycoprotein (Pgp)], the intracellular levels of diGly-DXR and triGly-DXR were markedly increased and consequent cytotoxicity was improved. On the other hand, GSH-conjugated DXR (GSH-DXR) showed 9- and 7.5-fold more cytotoxic activity than BSA-DXR against AH66P and AH66DR cells, respectively. GSH-DXR accumulated rapidly in AH66DR cells, probably by the same mechanism as in AH66P cells, because the treatment of AH66DR cells with verapamil did not cause a significant increase in the intracellular drug level as compared with that in cells treated without verapamil. The levels of cytotoxicity and accumulation of GSSG-DXR were the same as those of BSA-DXR for both cell lines. These results indicate that GSH-DXR exerts potent cytotoxicity against both cell lines among the peptide DXR conjugates examined because of the rapid uptake and high accumulation of GSH-DXR similar to that of DXR without efflux.