Using Mode of Action to Assess Health Risks from Mixtures of Chemical/Physical Agents

Abstract

Interactions between tumor promoters with differing mechanisms of action were examined in male B6C3F1 mice treated with mixtures of dichloroacetate (DCA), trichloroacetate (TCA), and tetrachloride (CT), each of which acts by a different mode of action. Mice were initiated by vinyl carbamate (VC), and then promoted by DCA, TCA, CT, or the pair-wised combinations of the three compounds. The effect of each treatment or treatment combination on tumor number/animal and tumor size was individually assessed at 18, 24, 30 or 36 weeks of treatment. Dose-related increases in tumor size were observed with 20 & 50 mg/kg CT, but each produced equal number of tumors at 36 weeks with the main distinction being a decrease in tumor latency at the higher dose. Overall TCA treatment produced dose-related increases in tumor number at 36 weeks of treatment. Thus, the lower doses of CT and TCA treatments apparently affected tumor size rather than number. Results with DCA were not as clear as a true maximum tumor number was not clearly observed within the experimental period. Treatment of mice receiving a high dose of TCA (2 g/L of drinking water) combined with varying doses of DCA (0.1, 0.5 and 2 g/L) produced increased numbers of tumors at 24 weeks and 36 weeks. However, at 36 weeks of treatment DCA produced a dose-related decrease in the size of tumors promoted by TCA. The low dose of TCA (0.1 g/L) decreased the number of tumors produced by a high dose of DCA, however, higher doses of TCA produced the same number as observed with DCA alone. Since these two chemicals produce lesions with differing phenotypes, the combination would have been expected to be additive with respect to number, but this was obviously not the case. These data suggest that the induction of liver cancer from mixtures of solvents may have predictable outcomes. The major conclusion is that these interactions are generally no more than additive. It was most interesting to note that additivity was only observed when a low, but effective, dose of one agent was superimposed on a high dose of another. When given at high doses, the effects were generally no greater than observed with either agent alone. A low dose of TCA was clearly antagonistic to a high dose of DCA. This antagonism carried throughout the dose response curve for TCA. Apparently, these interactions involve some subtle modification of effects by one chemical in cells responsive to the other chemical. Consequently, our findings do not argue that interactions will extend below the effective doses of either chemical.