Cytometric analysis of adverse action of diphenyl ditelluride on rat thymocytes: Cell shrinkage as a cytotoxic parameter

Abstract

Despite the growing use of organotellurium compounds in the chemical and biomedical fields, there has been no great concern about their toxicity until now. To test the possibility that diphenyl ditelluride (DPDT) and tellurium chloride (TeCl2), organic and inorganic tellurium compounds, may exert adverse action on mammals, their effects on rat thymocytes were examined under in vitro conditions using a flow cytometer with fluorescent probes. Incubation of thymocytes with DPDT at 300 nM or more for 24 h significantly increased the populations of shrunken cells and of cells with hypodiploidal DNA. Z-VAD-FMK, a paninhibitor of caspases, greatly suppressed the DPDT-induced increase in the hypodiploidal cell population, suggesting the involvement of caspase activation in DPDT toxicity. Hence, it is possible that DPDT would increase the population of thymocytes undergoing apoptosis if the blood concentration in mammals reached at least 300 nM or more. TeCl2 was much less potent than DPDT in increasing the population of hypodiploidal cells.

A biochemical and toxicological study with diethyl 2-phenyl-2-tellurophenyl vinylphosphonate in a sub-chronic intraperitoneal treatment in mice

“…Indeed, tellurides can cause citotoxicity (Sailer et al, 2003(Sailer et al, , 2004Iwase et al, 2004;Rooseboom et al, 2002), hepatotoxicity (Meotti et al, 2003), glutamatergic system alterations , and teratogenic effects (Stangherlin et al, 2005). In addition, organotellurium compounds can inhibit cysteinyl-containing enzymes, such as Na + /K + ATPase (Borges et al, 2005), δ-ALA-D (Maciel et al, 2000;Nogueira et al, 2003a,b;Barbosa et al, 1998) and squaleno monooxigenase (Laden and Porter, 2001), Thus, the toxicity of organotellurides can be related to the interaction with thiol groups of important biomolecules (Nogueira et al, 2004), the replacement of selenium in selenoproteins, such as thioredoxin , and the capacity of the tellurium compounds to induce the formation of reactive oxygen species (Chen et al, 2001).…”

Cytotoxic Characteristics of Two Isomeric Dimers Produced by Oxidation of Sesamol, an Antioxidant in Sesame Oil

“…28) Such spontaneous increase is completely attenuated by benzyloxycarbonyl-valylalanyl-aspartyl-luoromethylketone (Z-VAD-FMK), a pan-inhibitor for caspases. 14,[29][30][31] However, dimer A did not significantly attenuate the activity of caspase. Therefore, it may be hypothesized that the process of spontaneous apoptosis is promoted by dimer A and dimer A inhibits the activity of endonuclease activated by caspases.…”

Effect of Acute Administration of 3-Butyl-1-Phenyl-2-(Phenyltelluro)Oct-En-1-One on Oxidative Stress in Cerebral Cortex, Hippocampus, and Cerebellum of Rats

“…Indeed, tellurides can cause cytotoxicity (Sailer et al 2003(Sailer et al , 2004Iwase et al 2004;Rooseboom et al 2002), hepatotoxicity (Meotti et al 2003), glutamatergic system alterations (Nogueira et al 2001(Nogueira et al , 2002, teratogenic effects (Stangherlin et al 2005), and alterations of cytoskeletal proteins phosphorylation (Moretto et al 2005;Funchal et al 2006a). In addition, organotellurium compounds can inhibit cysteinyl-containing enzymes, such as Na ?/K ?…”