title: Mechanism of protection by metallothionein against acetaminophen hepatotoxicity.
abstract: Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose is the most frequent cause of drug-induced liver failure in the US. Metallothionein (MT) expression attenuates APAP-induced liver injury. However, the mechanism of this protection remains incompletely understood. To address this issue, C57BL/6 mice were treated with 100 micromol/kg ZnCl2 for 3 days to induce MT. Twenty-four hours after the last dose of zinc, the animals received 300 mg/kg APAP. Liver injury (plasma ALT activities, area of necrosis), DNA fragmentation, peroxynitrite formation (nitrotyrosine staining), MT expression, hepatic glutathione (GSH), and glutathione disulfide (GSSG) levels were determined after 6 h. APAP alone caused severe liver injury with oxidant stress (increased GSSG levels), peroxynitrite formation, and DNA fragmentation, all of which were attenuated by zinc-induced MT expression. In contrast, MT knockout mice were not protected by zinc. Hydrogen peroxide-induced cell injury in primary hepatocytes was dependent only on the intracellular GSH levels but not on MT expression. Thus, the protective effect of MT in vivo was not due to the direct scavenging of reactive oxygen species. Zinc treatment had no effect on the early GSH depletion kinetics after APAP administration, which is an indicator of the metabolic activation of APAP to its reactive metabolite N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine (NAPQI). However, MT was able to effectively trap NAPQI by covalent binding. We conclude that MT scavenges some of the excess NAPQI after GSH depletion and prevents covalent binding to cellular proteins, which is the trigger for the propagation of the cell injury mechanisms through mitochondrial dysfunction and nuclear DNA damage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3901 Rainbow Blvd, MS 1018, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA. csaito@kumc.edu
authors.forename: Chieko
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Hui-Min
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Artigues
authors.forename: Maria T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Villar
authors.forename: Anwar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farhood
authors.forename: Hartmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jaeschke
mesh_terms: D000082:Acetaminophen / Q000633:toxicity*; D000818:Animals; D015153:Blotting, Western; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008099:Liver / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D008668:Metallothionein / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization
chemical_list: D000082:Acetaminophen; D008668:Metallothionein