The influence of metabolism on the genotoxicity of catechol estrogens in three cultured cell lines

✍ Scribed by Silke Gerstner; Dörte Glasemann; Erika Pfeiffer; Manfred Metzler

• Book ID: 102948146
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 807 KB
• Volume: 52
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1613-4125
• DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.200700489

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The 2‐ and 4‐hydroxy metabolites of 17β‐estradiol (E2) and estrone (E1) are important for E2‐mediated carcinogenesis due to the formation of genotoxic ortho‐quinone metabolites. To assess the importance of metabolic conjugation for their genotoxicity, the DNA strand‐breaking activity of the four catechol estrogens was determined in three cell lines with different activities of catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) and UDP‐glucuronosyltransferase (UGT). Most DNA strand breaks were observed in V79 cells, which lack these metabolic activities. 2‐ and 4‐hydroxy‐E2 were 2.5 times more genotoxic than 2‐ and 4‐hydroxy‐E1. MCF‐7 cells exhibit COMT activity, and the incidence of DNA strand breaks decreased with increasing methylation; only the 4‐hydroxy metabolites of E1 and E2, which were poor substrates of COMT, exhibited low genotoxicity. HepG2 cells converted the catechol and methoxy metabolites of E2 to the respective E1 metabolites by 17β‐hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD). Moreover, methylation and glucuronidation took place. Only 4‐hydroxy‐E1 elicited a weak genotoxic response in these cells. The extensive metabolism in HepG2 cells is proposed to account for the failure of catechol estrogens to induce DNA strand breaks. Thus, metabolism by COMT and UGT and, to a minor extent, by HSD is a major determinant for the genotoxicity of catechol estrogens in target cells.