The cytochrome P450 inhibitor SKF-525A disrupts autophagy in primary rat hepatocytes

• SKF-525A increased LC3-II and p62 proteins without transcriptional activation.
• SKF-525A did not affect proteasome activities.
• SKF-525A inhibited autophagic flux.

The cytochrome P450 (CYP) inhibitor SKF-525A is commonly used to study drug metabolism and toxicity, particularly hepatotoxicity. By using Western blot and immunofluorescence staining, we unexpectedly found that SKF-525A at 2–20 μM caused remarkable accumulation of microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 II (LC3-II) in primary rat hepatocytes at 1, 4 and 24 h, indicating that autophagy was disrupted. SKF-525A showed no effects on chloroquine induced LC3-II accumulation, suggesting that autophagic flux was blocked, which is further supported by the increased level of the p62 protein after SKF-525A treatment. SKF-525A did not affect proteasome activities or gene expression of LC3-II or p62. Immunofluorescence of green fluorescent protein fused lysosomal-associated membrane protein 1 (LAMP1, a specific protein marker for lysosomes) and LC3-II showed that co-localization of these two proteins was partially abolished by SKF-525A, indicating that autophagosome-lysosome fusion was blocked. The other five CYP inhibitors, metyrapone, 1-aminobenzotriazole, alpha-naphthoflavone, ticlopidine, and ketoconazole, showed no effects in parallel experiments. These findings provide novel insights into the mechanisms by which various CYP inhibitors differentially affect a same drug's toxicity in hepatocytes. The data also indicate that SKF-525A is not an ideal chemical inhibitor for probing the relation between CYP mediated metabolism and toxicity in primary hepatocytes.