Reduction of cisplatin hepatotoxicity by procainamide hydrochloride in rats

In preceding papers, we proposed that procainamide hydrochloride, a class I antiarrhythmic agent, was able to protect mice and rats from cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity and that it could exert its action through accumulation in kidneys followed by coordination with cisplatin (or its hydrolysis metabolites) and formation of a less toxic platinum compound similar to the new platinum(II) triamine complex cis-diamminechloro-[2-(diethylamino)ethyl 4-amino-benzoate, N4]-chlorideplatinum(II) monohydrochloride monohydrate, obtained by the reaction of cisplatin with procaine hydrochloride. Hepatotoxicity is not considered as a dose-limiting toxicity for cisplatin, but liver toxicity can occur when the antineoplastic drug is administered at high doses. Here, we report that procainamide hydrochloride, at an i.p. dose of 100 mg/kg, reduces cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity, as evidenced by the normalization of plasma activity of glutamic oxalacetic transaminase and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, as well as by histological examination of the liver tissue. Twenty-four hours after i.p. treatment with the combination of 7.5 mg/kg cisplatin and 100 mg/kg procainamide, a significant increase of procainamide (+56%, P<0.05), total platinum (+31%, P<0.05), platinum-DNA adducts (+31%, P<0.05) and percent DNA-DNA interstrand cross-links (+69%, P<0.02) was found in liver tissue, as compared to animals treated with cisplatin alone. Moreover, in accordance with these findings, we also observed a slightly lower concentration and cumulative excretion of platinum in the feces. Since mitochondrial injury is considered a central event in the early stages of the nephrotoxic effect of cisplatin, the distribution of platinum in these subcellular organelles obtained from hepatocytes was determined after treatment with cisplatin with or without procainamide hydrochloride, together with platinum concentration in their cytosolic fraction. Our data show that the coadministration of procainamide hydrochloride produced a rearrangement of subcellular platinum distribution in hepatocytes with a slight decrease in mitochondria (-15%, P<0.10) and a slight increase in the cytosolic fraction (+40%, P<0.10) of platinum content, compared to the treatment with cisplatin alone. In analogy with our previous results in the kidney, confirmed here by our data in vitro, we suggest that the hepatoprotective activity of procainamide hydrochloride is linked to the formation of a less toxic platinum complex, which leads to inactivation of cisplatin itself and/or its highly toxic hydrolysis metabolites and to a different subcellular distribution of platinum.