title: Bathocuproine sulphonate: a tissue culture-compatible indicator of copper-mediated toxicity.
abstract: Metal-binding chelators may interact with biological systems by either of two mechanisms: they may combine with an essential metal, which can be either freely dissociated or part of an enzyme prosthetic group, or they may react with a metal ion to form a biologically reactive metal-chelate complex. As trace metals are always present as contaminants in serum-supplemented culture media used to study chelating agents, it is frequently difficult to distinguish between the two possibilities. Here we describe the use of a nontoxic, copper-specific chelating agent, bathocuproine sulphonate (Fig. 1) which, by combining with available endogenous copper in a tissue culture preparation, abolished the toxicity of three structurally unrelated chelating agents. These three agents may therefore be considered to be biologically active by the second mechanism.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002614:Chelating Agents; D003300:Copper / Q000633:toxicity*; D004050:Ditiocarb / Q000633:toxicity; D007939:Leukemia L1210; D051379:Mice; D010618:Phenanthrolines / Q000633:toxicity*; D013882:Thiosemicarbazones / Q000633:toxicity
chemical_list: D002614:Chelating Agents; D010618:Phenanthrolines; D013882:Thiosemicarbazones; C028559:bathocuproine sulfonate; D003300:Copper; C002701:neocuproine; D004050:Ditiocarb