Reactions of N,N-bis(2-chloroethyl)-p-aminophenylbutyric acid (chlorambucil) with 2'-deoxycytidine, 2'-deoxy-5-methylcytidine, and thymidine.

N,N-Bis(2-chloroethyl)-p-aminophenylbutyric acid (chlorambucil, 1; 2.5 mM) was allowed to react with 2'-deoxycytidine, 2'-deoxy-5-methylcytidine, and thymidine (16.1 mM) at physiological pH (cacodylic acid, 50% base), and the reactions were followed by HPLC and HPLC-MS technique. Although the predominant reaction observed was chlorambucil hydrolysis, 1 reacted with various heteroatoms of the nucleosides. The principal site of alkylation with all pyrimidine nucleosides was N3, as judged by 1H NMR and HPLC-MS analyses. Also, several other adducts were detected, which could be tentatively characterized by means of HPLC-MS and MS/MS. As expected, thymidine was the least reactive pyrimidine nucleoside studied, and in addition of the N3 derivative, it reacted only at the carbohydrate moiety. Overall reactivity of cytosine nucleosides with 1 was considerably higher. The N3 adducts of dCyd and 5-Me-dCyd partially deaminated under the reaction conditions employed, but the reaction was not catalyzed by the participation of the omega-hydroxy function of the alkyl substituent but presumably by the nitrogen atom of the chlorambucil moiety. In the case of cytosine nucleosides, the O2 derivatives were the second most abundant species. 5-Me-dCyd reacted more readily at O2 than dCyd. These O2 adducts were labile under acidic, neutral, and basic conditions. No N4 derivatives or cross-links were detected, but dCyd reacted also at C5, although the yield of this derivative was very low. The role of chlorambucil-pyrimidine 2'-deoxyribonucleoside adducts on the cytotoxicity and mutagenity of 1 is also discussed.