Enzymatic synthesis of polyglutamate derivatives of 7-hydroxymethotrexate.

7-Hydroxymethotrexate, an important metabolite of methotrexate, is a substrate for folylpolyglutamate synthetase (FPGS) isolated from rat liver and several human leukemia cell lines. The substrate activity it displays over a wide range of concentrations (0-200 microM) is nearly equivalent to that of methotrexate. The 7-hydroxy derivative of dichloromethotrexate is also a substrate for FPGS. The pattern of polyglutamate products synthesized by rat liver FPGS was nearly identical with both 7-hydroxymethotrexate and methotrexate. In addition, conversion of MTX polyglutamates to the corresponding 7-hydroxy compounds was demonstrated using partially purified rabbit liver aldehyde oxidase. The rate of conversion was concentration dependent, and the relative rate decreased as the MTX polyglutamate chain length increased. We propose that 7-hydroxymethotrexate polyglutamates may be formed by initial hydroxylation of methotrexate and subsequent polyglutamate formation or by direct hydroxylation of methotrexate polyglutamates. It was further shown that the relative substrate activity of folate analogs for folylpolyglutamate synthetase is dependent on the source of the enzyme.