Cancer Letters

Cancer Letters

Volume 10, Issue 3, September 1980, Pages 235-241
Cancer Letters

Research letter
5-(3-Hydroxymethyl-3-methyl-1-triazeno imidazole-4-carboxamide is a metabolite of 5-(3,3-dimethyl-1-triazeno)imidazole-4-carboxamide (DIC, DTIC NSC-45388)

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Abstract

The cancer chemotherapeutic drug, 5-(3,3-dimethyl-1-triazeno) imidazole-4-carboxamide (DIC, DTIC, NSC-45388), is metabolised in rats to a structurally related product which was detected by thin-layer chromatography. The novel metabolite has a lower mobility and a colour reaction that is indistinguishable from the parent compound. The metabolite is not retained on an anionic exchanger which is inconsistent with the expected covalent binding of the drug to endogenic anionic substrates (e.g. glucuronic acid). Since both DIC and the metabolite yielded 5[(4-ethylamino-1-napthyl)-azo]imidazole-4-carboxamide through release of 5-diazoimidazole-4-carboxamide, followed by coupling with N-ethyl-1-napthylamine, no biotransformation (hydroxylation) of the imidazole moiety of the injected DIC had occurred. By corollary, the lowered chromatographic mobility of the metabolite was explicable by the introduction of a polar but non-acidic function into the terminal dimethylamino group of the triazene side-chain. The metabolite was identified as 5-(3-hydroxymethyl-3-methyl-1-triazeno)imidazole-4-carboxamide by co-chromatography with an authentic sample of HMIC and by its methylating capacity for nucleophilic substrates.

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This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Ko 677/1 and SFB 136).

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