The immunomodulating agent gliotoxin causes genomic DNA fragmentation.

Gliotoxin, a member of the class of secondary fungal metabolites characterized by the presence of an epipolythiodioxopiperazine ring, caused fragmentation of spleen cell DNA as observed by flow cytometry and gel electrophoresis. Gliotoxin was found to cause substantial double-stranded DNA breakage in spleen cells which was dose- and time-dependent. The ability of gliotoxin to cause DNA breakage was also found to be specific to cell type. DNA breakage occurred in all cell types in which gliotoxin inhibited proliferation and so provides a general explanation as to how gliotoxin prevents cell proliferation. Other results showed that gliotoxin bound to a similar extent to both sensitive and resistant cells, indicating that differential uptake is not a likely mechanism to explain cell type selectivity. The results are discussed in terms of a mechanism for gliotoxin action involving genomic DNA as the central target.