Influence of 3-aminobenzamide, an inhibitor of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase, in the evaluation of the genotoxicity of doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide and zidovudine in female mice

• 3-AB, a PARP inhibitor, increases the genotoxic potential of AZT, DOX and CP.
• Co-incubation with 3-AB does not introduce false-positive results, as 3-AB + SUC did not show a genotoxic effect.
• 3-AB increased the sensitivity of both MN and comet assays in mice.
• This approach can be useful in the screening of weak genotoxins.

Testing new chemical entities for genotoxicity is an integral part of the preclinical drug-development process. Lowering the detection limit and enhancing the sensitivity of genotoxicity assays is required, as the standard test-battery fails to detect some carcinogens (non-genotoxic) and weak genotoxins. One of the mechanisms that affect the detection of weak genotoxins is related with the DNA-repair efficiency of the cell system used. In the present study, 3-aminobenzamide (3-AB, 30 mg/kg body-weight), a poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase inhibitor, was used to evaluate the DNA-damaging potential of zidovudine (AZT, 400 mg/kg bw), doxorubicin (DOX, 5 mg/kg bw) and cyclophosphamide (CP, 50 mg/kg bw, as a positive control) and sucrose (SUC, 3 g/kg bw, as a negative control) in Swiss female mice. The endpoints considered included micronucleus formation, DNA breakage (in peripheral blood lymphocytes, bone marrow and liver; comet assay) and chromosome aberrations, as well as immunohistochemistry of PARP-1 and phosphorylated histone H2AX (γ-H2AX). The results clearly indicate that the genotoxicity of zidovudine (AZT), doxorubicin (DOX) and cyclophosphamide (CP) was significantly increased in the combination treatments (3-AB + AZT, 3-AB + DOX, 3-AB + CP) as compared with the respective controls (treatment with AZT, DOX and CP alone). There was no increase in the genotoxicity per se after treatment with SUC, 3-AB or 3-AB + SUC, compared with the control (saline). Correlation analysis suggests that all genotoxicity parameters are well correlated with each other. The results clearly show that the genotoxicity of weak genotoxins can be enhanced and detected in the presence of 3-AB in mice. Thus, this approach can be used in the pre-clinical genotoxicity screening of weak genotoxins.