Effects of administration of the chemoprotective agent oltipraz on CYP1A and CYP2B in rat liver and rat hepatocytes in culture

The success of oltipraz (OPZ) [5-(2-pyrazinyl)-4-methyl-1,2-dithiole-3-thione] as a chemoprotective agent against aflatoxin B-1 (AFB(1))-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in the rat is thought to depend principally on its ability to enhance detoxication by inducing phase II enzymes, especially glutathione transferases. However, in primary cultures of human hepatocytes, we recently demonstrated that OPZ also has an important inhibitory effect on the major cytochromes P450 (CYPs) of human hepatic AFB(1) metabolism. This has prompted a detailed study of the effect of OPZ on some CYPs involved in metabolism of AFB(1) in the rat. Primary cultures of rat hepatocytes behaved similarly to human hepatocytes and responded to OPZ by inhibition of ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) and pentoxyresorufin-O-depentylase (PROD) activities mainly associated, respectively, with CYP1A and CYP2B. A time-course shows that this inhibition is largely reversible, with EROD and PROD activities reaching a minimum at 12 h and tending towards control values within 24 h. As is to be expected, the incubation of isolated microsomes with OPZ also inhibits CYP1A and 2B. The effect of OPZ on CYP1A is not a phenomenon limited to cells in culture, but also occurs in vivo. Using the whole animal, we were able to demonstrate that OPZ also transiently inhibited CYP1A activity in a rat given caffeine, by measuring the amounts of methylxanthines found in the serum. However, microsomes isolated from rats, that had been treated with OPZ in vivo, show no such inhibition, presumably because, since OPZ is a reversible inhibitor, it dissociates and is lost during the course of conventional procedures of microsomal preparation. This explains some earlier failures in studies of isolated microsomes to observe the inhibition of CYPs by OPZ. In addition to inhibiting their enzymatic activity, OPZ is also an inducer of CYP1A and 2B as shown by the increased levels of their mRNAs and of caffeine metabolism in vivo after 24 h or more. It is concluded that the mechanism of chemoprotection by OPZ, of toxic chemical metabolism in the rat, is complex and involves competitive inhibition of activation succeeded by induction of the enzymes of both activation and detoxication.