Oxidation-reduction reactions of iron bleomycin in the absence and presence of DNA

The role of redox-active metals in the mechanism of action of bleomycin

Belomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic routinely used to treat human cancer. It is commonly thought to exert its biological effects as a metallodrug, which oxidatively damages DNA. This review systematically examines the properties of bleomycin which contribute to its reaction with DNA in vitro and may be important in the breakage of DNA in cells. Because strand cleavage results from the reductive activation of dioxygen by metallobleomycins, the mechanism of this process is given primary attention. Current understanding of the structures of the coordination sites of various metallobleomycins, their thermodynamic stabilities, their propensity to form adduct species, and their properties in ligand substitution reactions provide a foundation for consideration of the chemistry of dioxygen activation as well as a basis for thinking about the metal-speciation of bleomycin in biological systems. Oxidation-reduction pathways of iron-bleomycin, copper-bleomycin, and other metal-bleomycin species with O2 are then examined, including information on photochemical activation. With this background, structural and thermodynamic features of the binding interactions of DNA with bleomycin, its metal complexes, and adducts of metallobleomycins are reviewed. Then, the DNA cleavage reaction involving iron-bleomycin is scrutinized on the basis of the preceding discussion. Particular emphasis is placed on the constraints which the presence of DNA places on the mechanism of dioxygen activation. Similarly, the reactions of other metalloforms of bleomycin with DNA are reviewed. The last topic is an analysis of current understanding of the relationship of bleomycin-induced cellular DNA damage to the model developed above, which has evolved on the basis of chemical experimentation. Consideration is given to the question of the importance of DNA strand breakage caused by bleomycin for the mechanism of cytotoxic activity of the drug.

Mechanism of reduction of bleomycin-Cu(II) by CO2- and oxidation of bleomycin-Cu(I) by H2O2 in the absence and presence of DNA

The reduction reaction of bleomycin-Cu(II) by CO2- has been studied by gamma and pulse radiolysis at pH7. The CO2- radical reduces bleomycin-Cu(II) at a rate of (6.7 +/- 0.7) X 10(8) dm3 mol-1 s-1. In the presence of calf thymus DNA the rate of the reduction decreased as the concentration of DNA increased, indicating that the reduction reaction proceeds through free bleomycin-Cu(II). The stoichiometry and the kinetics of the oxidation of bleomycin-Cu(I) by H2O2 in the presence and absence of DNA have been studied. Our observations suggest that the OH. radical is not produced during this reaction and the degradation of the drug occurs in the absence and presence of DNA. We assume that bleomycin-Cu(II) in the presence of a reducing agent and molecular oxygen or H2O2 does not cleave DNA since the oxidizing species, which are formed during the oxidation reaction by H2O2, attack the drug even in the presence of DNA.