N-Acetyl-L-cysteine and aminooxyacetic acid differentially modulate toxicity of the trichloroethylene metabolite S-(1,2-dichlorovinyl)-L-cysteine in human placental villous trophoblast BeWo cells

Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a known human carcinogen with toxicity attributed to its metabolism. S-(1,2-Dichlorovinyl)-L-cysteine (DCVC) is a metabolite of TCE formed downstream in TCE glutathione (GSH) conjugation and is upstream of several toxic metabolites. Despite knowledge that DCVC stimulates reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and apoptosis in placental cells, the extent to which these outcomes are attributable to DCVC metabolism is unknown. The current study used N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) at 5 mM and aminooxyacetic acid (AOAA) at 1 mM as pharmacological modifiers of DCVC metabolism to investigate DCVC toxicity at concentrations of 5–50 µM in the human placental trophoblast BeWo cell model capable of forskolin-stimulated syncytialization. Exposures of unsyncytialized BeWo cells, BeWo cells undergoing syncytialization, and syncytialized BeWo cells were studied. NAC pre/co-treatment with DCVC either failed to inhibit or exacerbated DCVC-induced H2O2 abundance, PRDX2 mRNA expression, and BCL2 mRNA expression. Although NAC increased mRNA expression of CYP3A4, which would be consistent with increased generation of the toxic metabolite N-acetyl-DCVC sulfoxide (NAcDCVCS), a CYP3A4 inhibitor ketoconazole did not significantly alter BeWo cell responses. Moreover, AOAA failed to inhibit cysteine conjugate β-lyase (CCBL), which bioactivates DCVC, and did not affect the percentage of nuclei condensed or fragmented, a measure of apoptosis, in all BeWo cell models. However, syncytialized cells had higher CCBL activity compared to unsyncytialized cells, suggesting that the former may be more sensitive to DCVC toxicity. Together, although neither NAC nor AOAA mitigated DCVC toxicity, differences in CCBL activity and potentially CYP3A4 expression dictated the differential toxicity derived from DCVC.