Human cells lack the inducible tolerance to arsenite seen in hamster cells.

Chinese hamster V79 cells and their arsenite-resistant variants were found to have an arsenite- and antimonite-inducible tolerance mechanism which protects against the subsequent cytotoxic effects of arsenate, arsenate and antimonite. Inducible tolerance requires de novo mRNA and protein synthesis, and is independent of the heat shock response. In contrast, we report that the arsenite hypersensitive variant line As/S27D lacks the inducible tolerance response. Numerous attempts were made to detect an inducible tolerance response to arsenite in a variety of human cells. An assay based on Neutral red uptake was used in order to study inducible tolerance in cells with poor clonability. Neither normal diploid cells nor human tumor cells of different origins were found to elicit an inducible tolerance response to arsenite. This finding may help to explain why rodents do not develop tumors after exposure to arsenite, while humans do. In addition, all human cell lines tested were much more sensitive to arsenite compared to Chinese hamster cells. Human keratinocytes were especially sensitive. In general, human cells resemble arsenic hypersensitive Chinese hamster As/R27D cells, which have lost a protective mechanism found in wild-type Chinese hamster cells.