Correlation of cytotoxicity with total intracellular exposure to 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine 5'-triphosphate.

The mechanism by which 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine produces cell death has been studied extensively, but the details remain controversial. The results presented here describe an evaluation of 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine-induced cytotoxicity in terms of the product of the total amount of the active 5'-triphosphate metabolite, 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine 5'-triphosphate (ara-ATP), which accumulated in the cells, and the duration of the exposure expressed in units of ara-ATP microM-hr. It was demonstrated that a strong correlation exists between these parameters which was not affected by the rate of accumulation of ara-ATP. In addition, inhibition of 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine deamination by 2'-deoxycoformycin did not alter the relationship between cell death and total intracellular exposure to ara-ATP. The consistency of this relationship both within and between experiments indicates that the quantitation of the total cellular exposure to ara-ATP is useful in predicting cytotoxicity.