Comparative in-Vitro Evaluation of the Myeloid Toxicity of Pentostatin and the Novel PNP-Inhibitor Forodesine.

Abstract 3766

Poster Board III-702

Inhibitors of the purine metabolism show promising results in the treatment of lymphatic malignancies due to their suppressive effects on lymphogenesis. Their first representative, Pentostatin (Pento), an inhibitor of the deoxyadenosine deaminase, has been in clinical use for several decades. However, early clinical trials with higher dose ranges of the drug reported unforseen severe myelotoxic effects. Recently, Forodesine (Foro), a novel inhibitor of the nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) has been introduced and is currently deployed in clinical phase I/II trials for the treatment of acute lymphatic leukemia (ALL). In order to systematically evaluate the myelotoxic effects of Pento and Foro, we have now examined their influence on the proliferation and differentiation of primitive and lineage committed hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). In vitro dose/effect-curves for Foro, Pento, and Cytarabine (AraC) were generated for the leukemic cell line jurkat by 48 hours of co-incubation with the compounds. Adequate cytotoxic effects, measured in the XTT assay and by flow cytometric analysis, were observed in clinically relevant dose ranges. For the following studies, an equivalent IC₆₀ dose of each chemotherapeutic agent was selected and CD34+ HPCs from either bone marrow, mobilized peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood were incubated with the compounds for 48 hours. Subsequently, the rate of vital cells was determined by flow cytometry after stainig with Annexin-V and Propidium Iodide. Compared to the untreated control, the lowest amount of vital CD34+ cells was found in AraC-treated samples (30%); Foro and Pento yielded more vital cells (66% vs 61%). The combination of Foro and Pento unexpectedly had the least toxic effect on CD34+ cells (72%; n=5; p<0.05). Cells from those primary cultures were harvested and short- and long term in vitro assays for colony forming units were performed to evaluate the compounds' toxicity on primitive and lineage committed HPCs. The frequency of primitive myeloic progenitors (LTC-IC) was 2.3% in the untreated samples and diminished after treatment with AraC (1.2%) and Pento (1.9%) but surprisingly significantly increased after Foro-treatment (2.7%); the combination of Foro and Pento resulted in a LTC-IC frequency of 2.3% (p<0.01; n=5) suggesting that Foro may have attenuated the myelotoxicity of Pento. Similar effects of Foro were also observed in the short term colony forming assays where Foro seemed to have a protective effect on multipotent GEMM-progenitors: colony count increased 1.3-fold in comparison to the control; AraC yielded only 0.1-fold, Pento 0.8-fold and the combination of Pento and Foro reached 0.9-fold of the control (p<0.05; n=15). In summary, the novel PNP-inhibitor Forodesine has not only proven to have a low in vitro toxicity on lineage committed HPCs but, surprisingly, the frequency of primitive myeloic progenitors (LTC-IC) increased; clinical studies should therefore be performed to evaluate whether Forodesine, while adding to the therapeutic efficiency, may attenuate adverse effects in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents, such as Pentostatin.