Doxorubicin-induced Apoptosis Is Associated with Increased Transcription of Endothelial Nitric-oxide Synthase

The clinical efficacy of the antitumor antibiotic drug doxorubicin (DOX) is severely limited by its dose-limiting cardiotoxicity in cancer patients. DOX-induced generation of reactive oxygen species was proposed to be a major mechanism of its cardiotoxicity. Previously, we showed that DOX undergoes a reductive activation at the reductase domain of endothelial nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) forming the semiquinone and superoxide (Vásquez-Vivar, J., Martasek, P., Hogg, N., Masters, B. S. S., Pritchard, K. A., Jr., and Kalyanaraman, B. (1997) Biochemistry 36, 11293-11297). In this report, we provide evidence for DOX-induced increase in eNOS transcription and protein expression in bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAEC). We propose that DOX-induced hydrogen peroxide formation is responsible for the increased transcription of eNOS. BAEC treated with antisense eNOS oligonucleotide inhibits DOX-induced endothelial apoptosis. Treatment with antioxidants restored the levels of antiapoptotic proteins (Hsp70 and Bcl-2) in DOX-treated BAEC. DOX-induced intracellular oxidative stress, as measured by oxidation of dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate to dichlorofluorescein and hydroethidium to ethidium, was inhibited by antisense eNOS oligonucleotide and antioxidant treatment. Furthermore, antiapoptotic antioxidants (e.g. FeTBAP, ebselen, and alpha-phenyl-tert-butyl nitrone) inhibited DOX-induced eNOS transcription. We conclude that DOX-induced apoptosis is linked to the redox activation of DOX by eNOS.