An alternative model for the selection of therapeutic chelating agents

New developments in therapeutic chelating agents as antidotes for metal poisoning

An examination of the studies on therapeutic chelating agents that have been carried out during the last decade reveals that extensive efforts have been made to develop compounds superior to those previously available for the treatment of acute and chronic intoxication by many metals. These metals include primarily iron, plutonium, cadmium, lead, and arsenic, but also many other elements for which acute and chronic intoxication is less common. These studies have revealed the importance of several additional factors of importance in the design of such compounds and have led to many new compounds of considerable clinical promise. An additional development has been the introduction of previously developed chelating agents for use with certain metals on a broader scale.

Antagonists for acute oral cadmium chloride intoxication

An examination has been carried out on the relative efficacy of a number of chelating agents when acting as antagonists for oral cadmium chloride intoxication in mice. The compounds were administered orally after the oral administration of cadmium chloride at 1 mmol/kg. Of the compounds examined, several were useful in terms of enhancing survival, but by far the most effective in both enhancing survival and leaving minimal residual levels of cadmium in the liver and the kidney, was meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA). Several polyaminocarboxylic acids also enhanced survival. The most effective of these in reducing liver and kidney levels of cadmium were diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), trans-1,2-diaminocyclohexane-N,N,N'N'-tetraacetic acid (CDTA), and triethylenetetraminehexaacetic acid (TTHA). D-Penicillamine (DPA) was found to promote survival but also led to kidney cadmium levels higher than those found in the controls. Sodium 2,3-dimercaptopropane-1-sulfonate (DMPS) was as effective in promoting survival as DMSA but left levels of cadmium in the kidney and liver that were approximately four times greater than those found with DMSA.

Histamine as a ligand in blood plasma. Part 7. Malate, malonate, maleate and tartrate as adjuvants of zinc to favour histamine tissue diffusion through mixed-ligand coordination. In vitro tests on lymphocyte proliferation

Investigations based on computer simulated distributions of histamine in blood plasma were recently devoted to the assessment of the roles of cysteine, aspartic and glutamic acids as possible adjuvants of zinc to favour histamine tissue diffusion through mixed-ligand coordination. Since all tissues contain at least one of the two enzymes required for the catabolism of histamine, any increase of its tissue diffusion is expected to result in an acceleration of its degradation, which may be of interest for the treatment of anaphylactic disorders. As an extension of these studies, the present paper first reports (i) an experimental investigation of the tendency of four dicarboxylic acids, namely malate, malonate, tartrate and maleate, to mixed-ligand coordination with zinc and histamine, (ii) computer-based potential effects to be expected from the association of these agents to zinc with respect to histamine tissue diffusion. Cell culture studies were then used to test simulation expectations. Two series of experiments involving successively human lymphocytes and a lymphoblastoid cell line (8866) have been carried out, which led to the following conclusions: (i) the hypothesis formerly put forward that cysteine could favour histamine tissue diffusion through mixed-ligand coordination with zinc has been validated on the two cell models, (ii) the formerly established suppressive role of histamine versus lymphocyte proliferation has clearly been confirmed, (iii) moreover, this suppressive effect has been shown to occur correlatively to histamine uptake by these cells, (iv) the four dicarboxylic acids, more especially tartric acid, proved effective as catalysts of the two above processes. Possible biomedical applications of these results are discussed.