Pyrrolidinedithiocarbamate (PDTC) and N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) are metal and nonmetal-chelating antioxidant which can induce rat and human smooth muscle cell death. When the smooth muscle cells from mouse aorta (MASMC) that we successfully cultured recently was exposed to PDTC and NAC in a normal serum state, the cells were induced to death by these compounds. However, PDTC did not induce the cell death in a serum depleted medium. This data suggests that certain factors in the serum may mediate the cytotoxic effect of PDTC. The metal chelator, Ca-EDTA blocked PDTC-induced cell death, but Cu-, Fe-, and Zn-EDTA did not block the PDTC-induced cell death. This data indicated that copper, iron, and zinc in the serum may lead to the cytotoxic effect of PDTC. Investigation of the intracellular zinc level in PDTC-induced smooth muscle cell death using the zinc probe dye N-(6-methoxy-8-quinolyl)-p-toluenesulfonamide shows that only the muscle-containing layers of the arteries have higher level of zinc. As expected, PDTC increased the intracellular fluorescence level of the zinc. In agreement with these results, the addition of an exogenous metal, zinc, induced the vascular aortic smooth muscle cell death which led to an increased intracellular zinc level. We concluded that PDTC induced mouse aortic smooth muscle cell death required not only zinc level but also intracellular copper and iron level. The mechanism of this antioxidant to induce vascular smooth muscle cell death may provide a new strategy to prevent their proliferation in arteriosclerotic lesions.