Reductive activation of mitomycins A and C by vitamin C

The anticancer drug mitomycin C produces cytotoxic effects after being converted to a highly reactive bis-electrophile by a reductive activation, a reaction that a number of 1-electron or 2-electron oxidoreductase enzymes can perform in cells. Several reports in the literature indicate that ascorbic acid can modulate the cytotoxic effects of mitomycin C, either potentiating or inhibiting its effects. As ascorbic acid is a reducing agent that is known to be able to reduce quinones, it could be possible that the observed modulatory effects are a consequence of a direct redox reduction between mitomycin C and ascorbate. To determine if this is the case, the reaction between mitomycin C and ascorbate was studied using UV/Vis spectroscopy and LC/MS. We also studied the reaction of ascorbate with mitomycin A, a highly toxic member of the mitomycin family with a higher redox potential than mitomycin C. We found that ascorbate is capable to reduce mitomycin A efficiently, but it reduces mitomycin C rather inefficiently. The mechanisms of activation have been elucidated based on the kinetics of the reduction and on the analysis of the mitosene derivatives formed after the reaction. We found that the activation occurs by the interplay of three different mechanisms that contribute differently, depending on the pH of the reaction. As the reduction of mitomycin C by ascorbate is rather inefficiently at physiologically relevant pH values we conclude that the modulatory effect of ascorbate on the cytotoxicity of mitomycin C is not the result of a direct redox reaction and therefore this modulation must be the consequence of other biochemical mechanisms.