Effect of 3-deazauridine on the metabolism, toxicity, and antitumor activity of azacitidine in mice bearing L1210 leukemia sensitive and resistant to cytarabine.

The effect of 3-deazauridine (DAUR) on the intracellular purine and pyrimidine nucleotide pools and on the metabolism of azacitidine (aza-CR) in L1210 cells, sensitive (L1210/0) and resistant (L1210/ara-C) to cytarabine (ara-C), was examined. The consequences of such a modulation were correlated with the therapeutic efficacy of this combination in mice bearing L1210 leukemia. In vitro and in vivo treatment of both L1210 sublines with DAUR produced a dose- and time-dependent reduction in the CTP and dCTP pools and an increase in the UTP pool. In addition to these changes in the pyrimidine nucleotide pools, DAUR produced a modest increase in the GTP pool and a marked expansion of the ATP pool in L1210/ara-C 12 hrs following in vivo drug treatment. These perturbations in nucleoside triphosphate pools were more pronounced in L1210/ara-C cells. Treatment of mice bearing L1210/ara-C with 100 mg/kg of DAUR reduced the CTP and dCTP pools in the leukemic cells by greater than 90% within 1-3 hrs after administration of the drug, with complete recovery of these pools occurring within 12 hrs. Fluctuation of the pyrimidine nucleoside pools after DAUR treatment was correlated with the subsequent increase in aza-CR metabolism and its incorporation into RNA and with the potentiation of the in vivo toxicity of aza-CR. In mice bearing L1210/0 or L1210/ara-C tumors, DAUR or aza-CR produced a less than or equal to 23% increase in life-span (ILS). Administration of aza-CR 3 hrs after DAUR, however, produced about an 80% ILS among mice bearing L1210/ara-C tumors, but no more than an approximately 20% ILS among mice bearing L1210/0 tumors. These data suggest that the therapeutic activity of the sequential combination of DAUR and aza-CR against mice bearing L1210/ara-C cannot be explained, per se, on the basis of the initial intracellular modulation of nucleotide pools, since DAUR affected these pools of the two tumors to approximately the same degree. What appears to be important, however, is that such a modulation by DAUR preferentially affected the metabolism of aza-CR in leukemic cells resistant to ara-C which are devoid of deoxycytidine kinase activity.