Metabolism of cyclopropavir and ganciclovir in human cytomegalovirus- infected cells

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that can cause severe disease in immunologically immature and immunocompromised patients. The current standard of therapy for the treatment of HCMV infections is ganciclovir (GCV). However, high incidence rates of adverse effects are prevalent and limit the use of this drug. Cyclopropavir (CPV) is 10-fold more effective against HCMV in vitro than GCV (50% effective concentrations [EC50s] = 0.46 and 4.1 μM, respectively) without any observed increase in cytotoxicity (S. Zhou, J. M. Breitenbach, K. Z. Borysko, J. C. Drach, E. R. Kern, E. Gullen, Y. C. Cheng, and J. Zemlicka, J. Med. Chem. 47:566-575, 2004, doi:10.1021/jm030316s). We have previously determined that the viral protein kinase pUL97 and endogenous cellular kinases are responsible for the conversion of CPV to a triphosphate (TP), the active compound responsible for inhibiting viral DNA synthesis and viral replication. However, this conversion has not been observed in HCMV-infected cells. To that end, we subjected HCMV-infected cells to equivalently effective concentrations (∼5 times the EC50) of either CPV or GCV and observed a time-dependent increase in triphosphate levels for both compounds (CPV-TP = 121 ± 11 pmol/106 cells; GCV-TP = 43.7 ± 0.4 pmol/106 cells). A longer half-life was observed for GCV-TP (48.2 ± 5.7 h) than for CPV-TP (23.8 ± 5.1 h). The area under the curve for CPV-TP produced from incubation with 2.5 μMCPV was 8,680 ± 930 pmol·h/106 cells, approximately 2-fold greater than the area under the curve for GCV-TP of 4,520 ± 420 pmol·h/106 cells produced from incubation with 25 μMGCV. We therefore conclude that the exposure of HCMV-infected cells to CPV-TP is greater than that of GCV-TP under these experimental conditions. Copyright © 2014, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.