Sulfur mustard (SM) is a potent alkylating agent, profoundly cytotoxic, and a powerful vesicant. SM reacts quite extensively with glutathione (GSH) and forms GSH conjugates, which are presumably excreted through the mercapturic acid pathway in mammals. It is unknown whether any enzymes, such as the glutathione-S-transferases (GST), are involved in this detoxification of SM by the formation of conjugates. A prototypic inhibitor (ethacrynic acid, EAA) and a prototypic inducer (Oltipraz, OLT) of GSH-S-transferase, have been used as pretreatment compounds in human epidermal keratinocytes (HEK) to investigate the effect of enzyme levels on cytotoxicity following SM challenge from 50 muM to 300 muM. Pretreatment of HEK for 24 h with EAA doubled survival against 200 muM SM (36% viability in non-pretreated cells vs. 81% in EAA-pretreated cells) and quadrupled survival (17% viability in non-pretreated controls vs. 71% in EAA-pretreated cells), while OLT pretreatment had no effect on cytotoxicity at either SM dose. The role of GST in SM cytotoxicity could not be tested because of the lack of an effect on modulation of GST activities by these 2 drugs. Cellular levels of GSH were increased 250-300% over control values using EAA pretreatment, while OLT pretreatment did not lead to any increase in GSH. Pretreatment of HEK with buthionine sulfoximine (BSO), a known depleter of glutathione levels, reduced glutathione levels and increased cytotoxicity. This large increase in GSH appears to be solely responsible for the enhanced survivability of EAA-pretreated HEK.