DNA adduct formation by the ubiquitous environmental contaminant 3-nitrobenzanthrone in rats determined by (32)P-postlabeling.

Diesel exhaust is known to induce tumors in animals and is suspected of being carcinogenic in humans. Of the compounds found in diesel exhaust and in airborne particulate matter, 3-nitrobenzanthrone (3-NBA), is a particularly powerful mutagen. We investigated the capacity of 3-NBA to form DNA adducts in vivo that could be used as agent-specific biomarkers of exposure. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were treated orally with 2 mg/kg body weight of 3-NBA, and DNA from various organs was analyzed by (32)P-postlabeling. High levels of 3-NBA-specific adducts were detectable in all organs. Both enrichment versions nuclease P1 digestion and n-butanol extraction resulted in patterns consisting of either 3 or 4 adducts remarkably similar in all tissues examined. The highest level of DNA adducts was found in the small intestine (38 adducts per 10(8) nucleotides) followed by forestomach, glandular stomach, kidney, liver, lung and bladder. To provide information on the nature of the adducts formed in vivo in rats, DNA adducts were cochromatographed in 2 independent systems with standardized deoxyguanosine adducts and deoxyadenosine adducts produced by reaction of 3-NBA in the presence of xanthine oxidase with deoxyribonucleoside 3'-monophosphates in vitro. In both systems, each of the rat adducts comigrated either with a deoxyguanosine or a deoxyadenosine-derived 3-NBA adduct. Our results demonstrate that 3-NBA binds covalently to DNA after metabolic activation, forming multiple DNA adducts in vivo, all of which are products derived from reductive metabolites bound to the purine bases (deoxyguanosine 60% and deoxyadenosine 40%).