title: Analysis of tumor thiol concentrations: comparison of flow cytometric with chemical and biochemical techniques.
abstract: The importance of glutathione (GSH) in contributing to cancer therapy resistance is well established. Various advantages may accrue from the ability to determine the distribution of GSH content in individual tumor cells disaggregated from solid tumors using flow cytometric techniques compared with biochemical or chemical measurements of the average GSH level in bulk tissue samples. The flow cytometric technique requires a thiol-reactive fluorescent adduct which is stable and which can differentiate cellular GSH from protein thiols. Thiol-reactive compounds specific for GSH require facilitated conjugation by endogenous cellular enzymes, but such compounds have not been found to accurately monitor GSH in human cells. Compounds which react generally with all thiols require a GSH-depleted calibration control to assess GSH vs. non-GSH components of fluorescent-adduct formation. Our report addresses this question, and compares three different thiol assays in several cell lines. We have found a simple way to control for non-GSH adduct formation. This involves a selective permeabilization process to release low molecular weight adducts (dominated by GSH and cysteine). In application to the desired goal of assessing the distribution of GSH in cells disaggregated from tumors, we have identified a problem with cell-line-specific thiol loss during the tumor cell disaggregation process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6072, USA.
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Horan
authors.forename: C Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Pletcher
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Menon
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001643:Bridged Bicyclo Compounds; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000379:methods; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D005978:Glutathione / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000737:chemistry*; D051381:Rats; D013439:Sulfhydryl Reagents; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D001643:Bridged Bicyclo Compounds; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes; D013439:Sulfhydryl Reagents; D005978:Glutathione; C028381:monobromobimane