REV 2871 (CHBZ): a novel inhibitor of histamine release

CHBZ is a novel, non-disodium cromoglycate (DSCG)-like, antiallergic drug in vitro. Whereas DSCG loses antisecretory activity with increasing time of preincubation with rat mast cells (RMC) before antigen challenge, and does not inhibit non-immunologically mediated release from human leukocytes, CHBZ exerts long-lived inhibition of both types of release from both types of cells. CHBZ is taken up by RMC in a saturable and time-dependent manner. It is enzymatically converted inside RMC to a DSCG-like metabolite, REV 3579, which, because of its ionic character, accumulates inside the cell. CHBZ, presumably through the action of the REV 3579 generated intracellularly, may mediate long-lived phosphorylation of the same 78 K protein which is transiently phosphorylated upon exposure of RMC to DSCG.