INHIBITION OF THE GROWTH OF HUMAN PANCREATIC-CANCER CELLS BY THE ARGININE ANTIMETABOLITE L-CANAVANINE

L-Canavanine (CAV), the L-2-amino-4-guanidinooxy structural analogue of L-arginine (ARG), is a potent ARG antagonist which occurs in the jack bean, Canavalia ensiformis. This ARG antimetabolite is active against L1210 murine leukemia and a solid colonic tumor in the rat. Our initial studies using a microtiter assay show that CAV exhibits a 50% inhibitory concentration of approximately 2 mM against the human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell line, MIA PaCa-2, when these cells are grown in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium containing 0.4 mM ARG. When the ARG concentration is reduced to 0.4 mu M, the 50% inhibitory concentration for CAV falls precipitously to 0.01 mM. The pronounced increase in the ability of CAV to inhibit MIA PaCa-2 cell growth at the lower ARG concentration may result from enhanced CAV competition with ARG for incorporation into newly synthesized cellular proteins. At 0.4 mu M ARG, 30 mM CAV almost completely inhibits cell growth by 6 h. In contrast, with 0.4 mM ARG, complete inhibition does not occur until after 48 h. A dramatic reversal of growth inhibition caused by a very high concentration of CAV was observed when cells treated with CAV were replenished with a high concentration of ARG. Our results suggest that CAV has real potential as a lead compound for the development of analogues with enhanced activity against human pancreatic cancer.