Pe. Bryant et Pj. Johnston, RESTRICTION-ENDONUCLEASE-INDUCED DNA DOUBLE-STRAND BREAKS AND CHROMOSOMAL-ABERRATIONS IN MAMMALIAN-CELLS, MUTATION RESEARCH, 299(3-4), 1993, pp. 289-296
Restriction endonucleases (RE) can be used to mimic and model the clas
togenic effects of ionising radiation. With the development of improve
d techniques for cell poration: electroporation and recently streptoly
sin O (SLO), it has become possible more confidently to study the rela
tionships between DNA double-strand breaks (dsb) of various types (e.g
. blunt or cohesive-ended) and the frequencies of induced metaphase ch
romosomal aberrations or micronuclei in cytokinesis-blocked cells. Alt
hough RE-induced dsb do not mimic the chemical end-structure of radiat
ion-induced dsb (i.e. the 'dirty' ends of radiation-induced dsb), it h
as become clear that cohesive-ended dsb, which are thought to be the m
ajor type of dsb induced by radiation, are much less clastogenic than
blunt-ended dsb. It has also been possible, with the aid of electropor
ation or SLO to measure the kinetics of dsb in cells as a function of
time after treatment. These experiments have shown that some RE (e.g.
Pvu II) are extremely stable inside CHO cells and at high concentratio
ns persist and induce dsb over a period of many hours following treatm
ent. Cutting of DNA by RE is thought to be at specific recognition seq
uences (as in free DNA) although the frequencies of sites in native ch
romatin available to RE is not yet known. DNA condensation and methyla
tion are both factors limiting the numbers of available cutting sites.
Relatively little is known about the kinetics of incision or repair o
f RE-induced dsb in cells. Direct ligation may be a method used by cel
ls to rejoin the bulk of RE-induced dsb, since inhibitors such as araA
, araC and aphidicolin appear not prevent rejoining, although these in
hibitors have been found to lead to enhanced frequencies of chromosoma
l aberrations. 3-Aminobenzimide, the poly-ADP ribose polymerase inhibi
tor is the only agent that has so far been shown to inhibit rejoining
of RE-induced dsb. Data from the radiosensitive xrs5 cell line, where
chromosomal aberration frequencies are higher after RE treatments than
in their normal parental CHO line, indicates that the xrs dsb repair
pathway is involved in the repair of these dsb. We found that cells tr
eated simultaneous with Pvu II and T4 ligase yielded lower levels of c
hromosomal damage than in the WT parental line indicating that Pvu II
induced dsb retain their ability to be blunt-end ligated inside the ce
ll.