Ahmed Uddin

The present study was designed to establish the form of the dose-response relationship for dietary sodium arsenite as a co-carcinogen with ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in a mouse skin model. Hairless mice (strain Skh1) were fed sodium arsenite continuously in drinking water starting at 21 days of age at concentrations of 0.0, 1.25, 2.5, 5.0, and 10 mg/L. At 42 days of age, solar spectrum UVR exposures were applied three times weekly to the dorsal skin at 1.0 kJ/m2 per exposure until the experiment ended at 182 days. Untreated mice and mice fed only arsenite developed no tumors. In the remaining groups a total of 322 locally invasive squamous carcinomas occurred. The carcinoma yield in mice exposed only to UVR was 2.4 +/- 0.5 cancers/mouse at 182 days. Dietary arsenite markedly enhanced the UVR-induced cancer yield in a pattern consistent with linearity up to a peak of 11.1 +/- 1.0 cancers/mouse at 5.0 mg/L arsenite, representing a peak enhancement ratio of 4.63 +/- 1.05. A decline occurred to 6.8 +/- 0.8 cancers/mouse at 10.0 mg/L arsenite. New cancer rates exhibited a consistent-with-linear dependence on time beginning after initial cancer-free intervals ranging between 88 and 95 days. Epidermal hyperplasia was elevated by arsenite alone and UVR alone and was greater than additive for the combined exposures as were growth rates of the cancers. These results demonstrate the usefulness of a new animal model for studying the carcinogenic action of dietary arsenite on skin exposed to UVR and should contribute to understanding how to make use of animal data for assessment of human cancer risks in tissues exposed to mixtures of carcinogens and cancer-enhancing agents.

Although epidemiologic evidence shows an association between inorganic arsenic in drinking water and increased risk of skin, lung, and bladder cancers, no animal model for arsenic carcinogenesis has been successful. This lack has hindered mechanistic studies of arsenic carcinogenesis. Previously, we and others found that low concentrations (< or =5 microm) of arsenite (the likely environmental carcinogen), which are not mutagenic, can enhance the mutagenicity of other agents, including ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and alkylating agents. This enhancing effect appears to result from inhibition of DNA repair by arsenite, but not via inhibition of DNA repair enzymes. Rather, low concentrations of arsenite disrupt p53 function and upregulate cyclin D1. Failure to find an animal model for arsenic carcinogenesis might be because arsenite is not a carcinogen per se but acts as an enhancing agent (cocarcinogen) with a genotoxic partner. We tested this hypothesis with solar UVR in hairless but immunocompetent Skh1 mice. Mice were given 10 mg/L sodium arsenite in drinking water (or not) and irradiated with 1.7 KJ/m(2) solar UVR 3 times weekly. As expected, no tumors appeared in any organs in control mice or in mice given arsenite alone. After 26 weeks irradiated mice given arsenite had a 2.4-fold increase in skin tumor yield compared with mice given UVR alone. The tumors were mostly squamous cell carcinomas, and those occurring in mice given UVR plus arsenite were much larger and more invasive. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that arsenic acts as a cocarcinogen with a second (genotoxic) agent by inhibiting DNA repair and/or enhancing positive growth signaling. Skin cancers in populations drinking water containing arsenic may be caused by the enhancement by arsenic compounds of carcinogenesis induced by UVR (or other environmental agents). It is possible that lung and bladder cancers associated with arsenic in drinking water may also require a carcinogenic partner.