Mechanism of enzymatic activation of carcinogens and drugs by the system of cytochrome P450

13 Abstract An environmental pollutant and a human carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is after its activation with cytochrome P450 (CYP) able to covalently bind to DNA. In the thesis, one of the target was to investigate an influence of individual components of mixed function monooxygenase (MFO) system on metabolism of benzo[a]pyrene and generation of adducts of activated BaP with DNA. The study was particularly focused to increase our knowledge on the effect of cyt b5 on metabolism of BaP by cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1) and its potential to serve as a donor of electrons during the reaction cycle of this cytochrome P450. The effect of cyt b5 on generation of BaP metabolites and adducts of BaP with DNA was investigated. In addition the effect of two different expression systems for cytochrome P450 1A1 (prokaryotic and eukaryotic) was also studied. The influence of cyt b5 on oxidation another xenobiotic compound, a plant alkaloid ellipticine that exhibit antitumor activities, was also investigated. Its pharmacological efficiency, as well as side effects depends on its metabolic activation by cytochrome P450. CYP3A4 is very important for ellipticine activation and therefore this enzyme was used in our experiments. Furthermore, a suitability of rat as a model organism mimicking the metabolic fate of BaP..