Examination of adduct formation in vivo in the mouse between benzo(a)pyrene and DNA of skin and hemoglobin of red blood cells.

We are interested in devising techniques which will allow us to measure and quantitate exposure to chemical carcinogens and which eventually can be used in risk analysis with humans. Our recent research with HPLC/fluorescence has demonstrated that we can detect, identify, and quantitate the binding of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) with DNA of mouse skin. The technique not only allows femtomole amounts of BaPDE associated with DNA isolated from a single mouse skin to be detected using conventional instrumentation, but also establishes the stereochemical origin of the adduct, and has been employed in the investigation reported here to estimate the concomitant binding of BaP to hemoglobin in vivo. The temporal existence of BaPDE/DNA adducts in mouse skin over a 5-week period showed that at 35 days after treatment, approximately 15% of the initial adducts were still detectable even though DNA turnover would predict that they should have been deleted from the genome. The concentration of the major covalently bound adduct, anti-BaPDE/deoxyguanosine, relative to the total BaPDE/DNA adduct population remained essentially constant during the 5-week period. It is known that topically applied BaP is absorbed, metabolized, and excreted by the mouse. Examination of hemoglobin of mouse RBCs 24 hr after BaP treatment revealed covalent adduct formation exclusively via anti-BaPDE. The dose response of adduct binding to hemoglobin and DNA appeared to be similar.