Enhanced toxicity for mice of pactamycin with bacterial endotoxin.

Combinations of pactamycin and Salmonella typhosa 0901 endotoxin, administered simultaneously, killed more BALB/c mice than comparable doses of either agent alone The slopes of the dose-response curves for combinations of endotoxin and pactamycin were parallel to both that for endotoxin alone and the antitumor drug alone; therefore, no new mechanism of toxicity has been evoked by the combination. The synergistic toxicity of endotoxin and pactamycin was due to an in vivo interaction rather than a direct reaction between the two agents. Phenobarbital pretreatment protected the mice from toxicity of the antitumor agent alone but not from the lethal action of the combination. Pretreatment with endotoxin increased the resistance of the mice to both endotoxin alone and the combination. Third agents unable to protect mice from the synergistic toxicity of endotoxin and pactamycin were alpha[p-(fluoren-9-ylidenemethyl)-phenyl]-2-piperidine-ethanol, neomycin, phenylbutazone, polymyxin B, and tybamate. Prednisolone pretreatment alleviated the toxicity of the combination. For the restricted series of killed bacteria and bacterial products tested for capability to enhance the toxicity of pactamycin, only gram-negative bacterial cells were potent. These results indicated that pactamycin rendered the mice more susceptible to endotoxin and that endotoxin was the causal lethal agent.