The effect of adriamycin on mammalian cardiac cells in tissue culture

Abstract

THE EFFECT OF ADRIAMYCIN ON MAMmaLIAN CARDIAC CELLS IN TISSUE CULTURE. M. R. Ross, B. C. Abbott. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. Adriamycin is an anticarcinogenic agent which produces cardiotoxicity as a side effect in a significant number of cancer patients with eventual congestive heart failure. The cause of the cardiotoxic effect is not known. To investigate the basis for the cardiotoxic effect a model system of mammalian cardiac cells in culture was used to study the effect o~ the rate of total protein synthesis and DNA synthesis. The cultures were derived from neonatal (2-4 days old) rat hearts. At 24 hours after plating they were incubated with adriamycin (i ~g/ml growth medium) for 3 hours. The drug was removed and the cultures reincubated with control medium. Duplicate cultures were used as controls. At selected times (27 hrs., 48 hrs., 72 hrs., 96 hrs., and 120 hrs.) the cultures were pulsed with radioactively labelled substrates from 5 minutes to 210 minutes. The incorporation of t~.e ~T, ino acid L-leucine [4,5-3H] was used as th~ parameter for the rate of protein synthesis and incorporation of thymidine [methyl-14C] for the rate of DNA synthesis. The rates of incorporation in treated and control cultures were not significantly different, suggesting that the rates of protein and DNA syntheses are not impaired. Work is now in progress to isolate the myocardial cells from the epithelial-fibroblast cells as homogeneous entities, and to investigate the sensitivity of each to adriamycin. [Supported by the American Heart Association Los Angeles Affiliate Grant 5181G2].