These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: AZT causes tissue-specific inhibition of mitochondrial bioenergetic function.
    Author: Modica-Napolitano JS.
    Journal: Biochem Biophys Res Commun; 1993 Jul 15; 194(1):170-7. PubMed ID: 8101441.
    Abstract:
    The mitochondrial myopathy associated with long-term AZT therapy is a factor that limits the clinical efficacy of this compound in the treatment of AIDS. The biochemical basis for this tissue-specific pathology was investigated by measuring the effect of AZT on various aspects of bioenergetic function in mitochondria isolated from rat skeletal muscle, brain, and liver. AZT induced a dose-dependent inhibition of both NADH-linked respiration in intact mitochondria and NADH-cytochrome c reductase activity (but not succinate-cytochrome c reductase activity) in freeze-thawed mitochondrial preparations isolated from all three tissue types (1/2 maximal inhibition was obtained at 2 mg/ml and between 0.3 and 0.8 mg/ml AZT, respectively). These data demonstrate that high concentrations of AZT inhibit electron transfer through respiratory enzyme complex I. Moreover, AZT was shown to induce a tissue-specific inhibition of succinate-linked respiration in intact mitochondria isolated from rat skeletal muscle (1/2 maximal inhibition at 0.5 mg/ml AZT) and possibly brain, but not liver. The data suggest that this inhibition possibly occurs at the level of succinate transport. These results may help to explain the tissue-specific mitochondrial effects that are induced by long-term zidovudine treatment of AIDS patients and suggest that the anti-retroviral activity exhibited by AZT may be distinct from its mechanism of mitochondrial toxicity.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]