The in vitro response of human tumour cells to desferrioxamine is growth medium dependent

Iron chelating agents have been demonstrated to inhibit tumour cell growth. However, in vitro and in vivo results using desferrioxamine a hexadentate iron chelating agent, for anti-cancer treatment are not always in agreement. Therefore, we have studied the response of three human tumour cell lines (HL-60 promyelocytic leukaemia, MCF-7 breast cancer and HepG2 hepatoma), grown in culture medium supplemented with either human pooled (HPS) or fetal bovine serum (FBS), to desferrioxamine. Desferrioxamine, at micromolar concentrations, induced severe cytotoxicity in all tumour cell lines grown in FBS medium. When grown in HPS medium, comparable desferrioxamine cytotoxicity was observed in the millimolar range. The addition of 50% saturated human transferrin to FBS medium resulted in protection against desferrioxamine cytotoxicity. HL-60 cells were further studied for iron metabolism characteristics. HL-60 cells, grown in medium with FBS, were found to have an 8.4 fold increase in surface transferrin receptor (TfR) expression (P < 0.001) as compared with HL-60 cells grown in medium with HPS. However, iron uptake of HPS cultured HL-60 cells, after incubation with saturated human transferrin, was higher, resulting in a higher concentration of iron in HPS cultured HL-60 cells as compared with FBS cultured cells (1.72 +/- 0.02 mumol/g protein v. 1.32 +/- 0.14 mumol/g protein; P < 0.001). Using desferrioxamine it was shown that TfR expression is dependent on the biological availability of iron in the cell. Consistent with the lower iron content in FBS cultured cells, we conclude that the cytotoxicity of desferrioxamine is dependent on the ability of cells to replenish cellular iron stores from the culture medium. Cells grown in FBS medium lack this ability and are therefore more susceptible to desferrioxamine.