Effects of dietary and intraperitoneally administered beta-naphthoflavone on mutagenicity and tissue distribution of Trp-P-1 in the rat.

The effect of dietary beta-naphthoflavone (BNF) on tissue retention of 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1) was studied in the rat. Female rats, 3 weeks old, were fed a BNF-containing diet for 3 days before being dosed orally or i.v. with 14C-labelled Trp-P-1. The rats were killed at 4, 24 or 48 h after dosage and subjected to tape-section autoradiography. The tissue localization of Trp-P-1-derived radioactivity was compared to that observed in untreated rats and in rats given BNF i.p. Ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) activity and mutagenicity of Trp-P-1 in the Ames test, using S9 prepared from forestomach, glandular stomach, small intestine, liver and lung, were used as in vitro assays to measure the degree of cytochrome P450IA1 and/or P450IA2 induction. Dietary BNF treatment caused a 30- to 40-fold increase in EROD activity in the small intestine, but only a 2-fold increase in the liver and the lung. These inter-organ differences were not observed after i.p. administration of BNF. The increase in mutagenicity of Trp-P-1 in the Ames test could be correlated to the increase in EROD activity. The autoradiographic data showed that the route of administration of BNF as well as of Trp-P-1 were important for the tissue localization of Trp-P-1. Dietary BNF treatment caused a pronounced retention of Trp-P-1-derived radioactivity in the epithelia of the small intestine, forestomach, oesophagus and the oral cavity, regardless of the administration route of Trp-P-1; a similar though less pronounced epithelial retention was observed after i.p. injection of BNF. A clear-cut boundary of accumulated radioactivity between the forestomach and the glandular stomach where the levels were almost non-detectable was observed in rats fed the BNF-containing diet. It is concluded that dietary inducers may be important determinants of metabolism and tissue distribution of toxic compounds.