Effect of N-hydroxyparacetamol on cell cycle progression.

N-hydroxyparacetamol treatment of rat kidney cells gave rise to a dose-dependent decrease in DNA synthesis. A concentration of 1.0 mM N-hydroxyparacetamol at pH 7.2 decreased the level of DNA synthesis to 13.0 +/- 2.3% of the control value after 1 hr incubation. This compound also caused a perturbation of cell cycle progression. A concentration of 0.44 mM N-hydroxyparacetamol induced G1/S and S phase blocks. These delays became evident at approximately 12 hr after treatment and persisted until about 15 hr when cells started to recover. It seems unlikely that N-hydroxyparacetamol inhibits DNA synthesis and perturbs cycle progression through alterations to DNA structure as such, since this compound failed to alter the migration pattern of naked plasmid DNA.