A serious limitation in the use of the DNA-cleaving, antitumoral-antibiotic, bleomycin during chemotherapy is pulmonary toxicity. Lung injury induced by bleomycin is characterized by an increased deposition of interstitial extracellular matrix proteins in the alveolar wall that compromises respiratory function. Several drugs have been tested in animal models to prevent the pulmonary toxicity of...

Bleomycin is used in combination with other antineoplastic agents to effectively treat lymphomas, testicular carcinomas, and squamous cell carcinomas of the cervix, head, and neck. However, resistance to bleomycin remains a persistent limitation in exploiting the full therapeutic benefit of the drug with other types of cancers. Previously, we documented that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae L-carni...

Background: There is conflicting data about the increased risk of pulmonary toxicity when granulocyte-stimulating factor (G-CSF) is given in combination with bleomycin. No clear consensus for management of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) who require G-CSF support exists. Our objective was to evaluate whether there is an increase in pulmonary toxicity in patients who receive bleomycin and G-...

OBJECTIVE The β-glucans are long-chain polymers of glucose, which comprise the fungal cell wall, stimulate cells of the innate immune system, enhance disturbed epithelization, and have antioxidant effects. Oxidative stress has been implicated in the pathogenesis of bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis and various antioxidant agents have been studied for prevention and treatment of the disease. In th...

Bleomycin is widely used for treating several types of human tumors as well as a variety of experimental tumors. The ability of this antibiotic to bind and to damage DNA has been proposed to be responsible for its antitumor effect. Bleomycin is also a good chelator for several metals, e.g., iron, copper, and others. Bleomycin:metal complexes have been investigated in detail particularly for the...

The interactions between bleomycin and X-ray damage and repair have been examined in rat and human tumor cells. Bleomycin itself indices extensive DNA single-strand breaks but does not appear to inhibit the repair of X-ray-induced DNA single-strand breaks. Quantitative analysis of these interactions is complicated by the retention of active bleomycin within cells that remains capable of further...

Bleomycin was observed to inhibit DNA and protein syntheses in intact Escherichia coli, Ehrlich carcinoma and HeLa cells. DNA synthesis was more profoundly affected than protein synthesis. RNA synthesis was not significantly suppressed by the antibiotic. The activity of bleomycin was highly dependent on the number of cells and on the concentration of phosphate in the medium, being more pronounc...

The biochemical basis for bleomycin-induced pulmonary toxicity was studied in vitro and in vivo with an improved HPLC system. The in vitro metabolism of bleomycin A2 to desamido-bleomycin A2 was measured in tissue homogenates from a species sensitive (mice) and relatively resistant (rabbits) to the pulmonary fibrogenic properties of bleomycin. Lung tissue from mice lacked detectable bleomycin h...

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of treatment with the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor enalapril in a mouse model of pulmonary hypertension induced by bleomycin. Bleomycin-induced lung injury in mice is mediated by enhanced tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) expression in the lung, which determines the murine strain sensitivity to bleomycin, and murine st...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to attenuate pulmonary damage induced by bleomycin-based anticancer treatments, but the influence of bleomycin on the stem cells themselves remains largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that human bone marrow-derived MSCs are relatively sensitive to bleomycin exposure compared to adult fibroblasts. MSCs revealed increased levels of apoptosis after b...