Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:1.5.1.3 (dihydrofolate reductase)
 5,819 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A direct ligand-banding radioassay for methotrexate (MTX) has been developed using dihydrofolate reductase, contained in the lysate of L1210 leukemia cells, as the binding determinant. The procedure is a two-phase reaction system where standard MTX concentrations or the sample being assayed in incubated with the reagent lysate in the first phase, and [3H]MTX is then added in the second phase to titrate the remaining unoccupied binding sites on the enzyme. This method eliminates the need for measuring the residual catalytic activity of the enzyme. The sensitivity of the radioassay is limited only by the specific activity of the [3H]MTX and how approximates 10 pg of the drug. Folic acid, methyltetrahydrofolate, formyltetrahydrofolate, and dehydrofolate in concentrations that are physiological do not interfere in the radioassay. Both mercaptoethanol and reduced nicotinamide andnine dinucleotide phosphate increase the binding capacity of the lysate for MTX; but the reduced nucleotide also increases the affinity of the enzyme for the inhibitor. MTX added to serum can be assayed without extraction if the concentration is greater than 500 pg/ml and recovery of the drug added to serum is about 92%. MTX has been assayed in serum, spinal fluid, and urine of patients who were treated with this drug. It has also been assayed in the lysates of L1210 cells from C57BL X DBA/2 F1 mice treated with MTX. The procedure is simple, rapid, and accurate and should permit better correlation of the therapeutic and toxic effects of MTX with blood concentrations over long-term treatment periods.
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PMID:A direct ligand-binding radioassay for the measurement of methotrexate in tissues and biological fluids. 80 20

The ability of L1210 mouse leukemia cells and of a mutant methotrexate-resistant cell line (L1210/MTX) to synthesize methotrexate polyglutamates was studied. Host DBA/2 mice were treated with methotrexate, after which leukemic cells were harvested from ascitic fluid and levels of methotrexate and metabolites in them were determined by Sephadex G-15 gel chromatography. The level of methotrexate in L1210/MTX cells was 12.5 times greater than that in L1210 cells, reflecting the increased level of dihydrofolate reductase that characterizes this mutant cell line. Synthesis of methotrexate polyglutamates in each cell line required a dose of methotrexate (2.4 mg/kg) 10 times greater than the dose that yielded extensive methotrexate polyglutamate synthesis in rat liver and kidney in previous studies. Total methotrexate polyglutamates synthesized in 4 hr with this dose were the same in each cell line, demonstrating that this metabolism was not affected by differences in the level of dihydrofolate reductase. Methotrexate polyglutamates comprised 47+/-20% of the total methotrexate in L1210 cells. Methotrexate diglutamate was the predominant form. Levels of methotrexate monoglutamate and diglutamate were similar in L1210/MTX cells, whereas methotrexate monoglutamate was the predominant metabolite in host liver, kidney, and small intestine. These differences may reflect differences in substrate preference of pteroylpolyglutamate synthetase in these different tissues. Twenty-four hr after methotrexate administration, total methotrexate in L1210 cells was one-third of that at 4 hr; but the proportion of metabolites was the same, presumably reflecting cell death and division rather than loss of a freely exchangeable portion of intracellular methotrexate present at the earlier time. The affinity of methotrexate polyglutamates for dihydrofolate reductase was found to be similar to that of methotrexate, providing evidence that these metabolites may be as potent antagonists of folate metabolism as is methotrexate itself. Recent studies indicate that inhibition of folate metabolism in cells requires their exposure to high levels of methotrexate in order to achieve intracellular levels of methotrexate greater than needed to bind to dihydrofolate reductase. Such conditions conform to those required for synthesis of methotrexate polyglutamates. Thus, these metabolites may play a specific role in inhibiting folate metabolism, distinct from the antifolate potential that they appear to share with methotrexate.
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PMID:Synthesis of methotrexate polyglutamates in L1210 murine leukemia cells. 83 65

This report describes an unexpected difference in the efficiency of removal of UV-induced DNA damage in the c-myc locus in splenic B lymphoblasts from two inbred strains of mice. In cells from plasmacytoma-resistant DBA/2N mice, 35% of UV-induced damage in the regulatory and 5' flank of c-myc is removed by 12 h. However, in cells from plasmacytoma-susceptible BALB/cAn mice, damage is not removed from this region. In the protein-encoding region and 3' flank of c-myc as well as in two dihydrofolate reductase gene fragments, UV damage is repaired with similar efficiency in B lymphoblasts from both strains of mice. Furthermore, in the protein-encoding portion and 3' flank of c-myc, damage is selectively removed from only the transcribed strand. No repair is detected in the nontranscribed strand. In contrast, DNA repair in the 5' flank of c-myc is not strand specific; in DNA from DBA/2N cells, UV damage is rapidly removed from both the transcribed and nontranscribed strands. In BALB/cAn cells no repair was detected in either strand in the 5'flank, consistent with the results with double-stranded, nick-translated probes to this region of c-myc. In addition to the repair studies, we have detected post-UV-damage formation: in most of the genes studied, we find that additional T4 endonuclease-sensitive sites are formed in the DNA 2 h after irradiation. Our findings provide new insights into the details of gene-specific and strand-specific DNA repair and suggest that there may be close links between DNA repair and B-cell neoplastic development.
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PMID:DNA repair in the c-myc proto-oncogene locus: possible involvement in susceptibility or resistance to plasmacytoma induction in BALB/c mice. 171 24

We have studied DNA repair after UV damage in the murine c-myc locus. It appears that a region in B cells upstream of the murine c-myc gene is repaired with a different efficiency in plasmacytoma-resistant DBA/2N mice than in plasmacytoma-susceptible BALB/cAn mice. The region just upstream of c-myc is inefficiently repaired in B lymphoblasts derived from BALB/cAn mice. In contrast, this same region of c-myc is efficiently repaired in B lymphoblasts derived from DBA/2N mice. DNA fragments located in the coding region of c-myc and in another gene, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), are repaired with equal efficiency in cells from these two strains of mice. It is possible that repair efficiency of the 5' flank of c-myc may be involved in tumor susceptibility of the mouse strain.
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PMID:DNA repair in the c-myc locus. 207 8

As part of a continuing program aimed at developing nonpolyglutamylatable inhibitors of dihydrofolate reductase that are less toxic and more specific in their action, we herein report the therapeutic efficacy and toxicity of gamma-methylene-10-deazaaminopterin (MDAM) in athymic nude mice bearing advanced human HCT-8 ileocecal xenografts and its antitumor activity in C57BL/6 x DBA/2 F1 (hereafter called B6D2F1) mice bearing P388 murine leukemia. For the xenograft study, MDAM was administered at the maximum tolerated dose by the following dose schedules: (a) 5-day continuous i.v. infusion at 1.0 mg/kg/day (schedule I); and (b) i.v. push, daily for 5 days at 50 mg/kg/day (schedule II). The maximum tolerated dose values for methotrexate (MTX) under these conditions were 0.2 and 1.0 mg/kg/day for schedule I and schedule II, respectively. MTX did not exhibit any significant antitumor activity in this model system by both schedules; however, MDAM induced complete responses of 13 and 25% and partial responses of 25 and 50% by schedules I and II, respectively. MDAM also exhibited antitumor activity significantly superior to that of MTX in the P388 tumor model. One of the enantiomers of MDAM, which possesses the natural configuration at the gamma-methyleneglutamate moiety (l-MDAM), has been shown to be a better inhibitor of human recombinant dihydrofolate reductase and H35 hepatoma cell growth than D,L-MDAM. L-MDAM inhibited the uptake of radiolabeled folinic acid to H35 hepatoma cells eight times more efficiently than MTX. The results indicate that the superior activity of MDAM relative to MTX may be partially due to a combination of enhanced transport to tumor cells and slower deactivation by aldehyde oxidase.
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PMID:Polyglutamylation of the dihydrofolate reductase inhibitor gamma-methylene-10-deazaaminopterin is not essential for antitumor activity. 981 21