Characterization of biotinylated repair regions in reversibly permeabilized human fibroblasts.

We have examined the incorporation of biotinyl-11-deoxyuridine triphosphate (BiodUTP) into excision repair patches of UV-irradiated confluent human fibroblasts. Cells were reversibly permeabilized to BiodUTP with lysolecithin, and biotin was detected in DNA on nylon filters using a streptavidin/alkaline phosphatase colorimetric assay. Following a UV dose of 12 J/m2, maximum incorporation of BioUTP occurred at a lysolecithin concentration (80-100 micrograms/mL) similar to that for incorporation of dTTP. Incorporation of BiodUTP into repair patches increased with UV dose up to 4 and 8 J/m2 in two normal human fibroblast strains, while no incorporation of BiodUTP was observed in xeroderma pigmentosum (group A) human fibroblasts. The repair-incorporated biotin was not removed from the DNA over a 48-h period, and only slowly disappeared after longer times (approximately 30% in 72 h), while little of the biotin remained in cells induced to divide. Furthermore, the stability of the biotin in repaired DNA was unaffected by a second dose of UV radiation several hours after the biotin-labeling period to induce a "second round" of excision repair. Exonuclease III digestion and gap-filling with DNA polymerase I indicate that the majority of biotin-labeled repair patches (approximately 80%) are rapidly ligated in confluent human cells. However, the remaining patches were not ligated after a 24-h chase period, in contrast to dTTP-labeled repair patches. The BiodUMP repair label in both chromatin and DNA is preferentially digested by staphylococcal nuclease, preventing the use of this enzyme for nucleosome mapping in these regions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Lack of effect of hydroxyurea on base excision repair in mammalian cells

The effect of hydroxyurea on the initial steps of base excision repair has been examined in mammalian cells in 3 different proliferative states: i.e., quiescent cells, asynchronously growing cells undergoing multiple divisions prior to confluence; and synchronous cell populations undergoing the first cell cycle(s) after release from quiescence. Two parameters of the base excision repair pathway were examined: (1) The direct excision of 7-methylguanine from cellular DNA in the presence of increasing hydroxyurea concentrations was quantitated by high performance liquid chromatography; (2) the effects of hydroxyurea on the uracil DNA glycosylase were examined by quantitating the levels of this base excision repair enzyme in quiescent and proliferating cells. In quiescent cells, hydroxyurea at concentrations routinely used to quantitate DNA repair had no effect on the excision rates of 7-methylguanine examined over a span of 3 days; nor was there any effect on the specific activity of uracil DNA glycosylase in confluent cells. In asynchronously proliferating mammalian cells, identical hydroxyurea concentrations had no effect on the induction of the glycosylase. In synchronous growing cells HU had no effect on the temporal sequence of induction of uracil DNA glycosylase prior to DNA replication, nor on the extent of this induction. These results suggest that hydroxyurea at concentrations generally used to measure DNA repair has no effect on base excision repair.     

Long patch base excision repair with purified human proteins. DNA ligase I as patch size mediator for DNA polymerases delta and epsilon

Among the different base excision repair pathways known, the long patch base excision repair of apurinic/apyrimidinic sites is an important mechanism that requires proliferating cell nuclear antigen. We have reconstituted this pathway using purified human proteins. Our data indicated that efficient repair is dependent on six components including AP endonuclease, replication factor C, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, DNA polymerases delta or epsilon, flap endonuclease 1, and DNA ligase I. Fine mapping of the nucleotide replacement events showed that repair patches extended up to a maximum of 10 nucleotides 3' to the lesion. However, almost 70% of the repair synthesis was confined to 2-4-nucleotide patches and DNA ligase I appeared to be responsible for limiting the repair patch length. Moreover, both proliferating cell nuclear antigen and flap endonuclease 1 are required for the production and ligation of long patch repair intermediates suggesting an important role of this complex in both excision and resynthesis steps.     

Removal of N-6-methyladenine by the nucleotide excision repair pathway triggers the repair of mismatches in yeast gap-repair intermediates

Gap-repair assays have been an important tool for studying the genetic control of homologous recombination in yeast. Sequence analysis of recombination products derived when a gapped plasmid is diverged relative to the chromosomal repair template additionally has been used to infer structures of strand-exchange intermediates. In the absence of the canonical mismatch repair pathway, mismatches present in these intermediates are expected to persist and segregate at the next round of DNA replication. In a mismatch repair defective (mlh1Δ) background, however, we have observed that recombination-generated mismatches are often corrected to generate gene conversion or restoration events. In the analyses reported here, the source of the aberrant mismatch removal during gap repair was examined. We find that most mismatch removal is linked to the methylation status of the plasmid used in the gap-repair assay. Whereas more than half of Dam-methylated plasmids had patches of gene conversion and/or restoration interspersed with unrepaired mismatches, mismatch removal was observed in less than 10% of products obtained when un-methylated plasmids were used in transformation experiments. The methylation-linked removal of mismatches in recombination intermediates was due specifically to the nucleotide excision repair pathway, with such mismatch removal being partially counteracted by glycosylases of the base excision repair pathway. These data demonstrate that nucleotide excision repair activity is not limited to bulky, helix-distorting DNA lesions, but also targets removal of very modest perturbations in DNA structure. In addition to its effects on mismatch removal, methylation reduced the overall gap-repair efficiency, but this reduction was not affected by the status of excision repair pathways. Finally, gel purification of DNA prior to transformation reduced gap-repair efficiency four-fold in a nucleotide excision repair-defective background, indicating that the collateral introduction of UV damage can potentially compromise genetic interpretations.     

Periodic changes of chromatin organization associated with rearrangement of repair patches accompany DNA excision repair of mammalian cells

We have used 8-methoxypsoralen to probe the chromatin structure of mammalian cells in situ while they repair pyrimidine dimers or bulky lesions in DNA. We observed that excision repair of these DNA lesions is accompanied by periodic alterations of chromatin organization. In parallel, fluctuations of the rates of repair patch synthesis accompanied these structural changes. Taking advantage of the accessibility of free DNA domains for psoralen intercalation, we have developed a technique to quantitatively isolate the micrococcal nuclease-sensitive, free DNA fraction of native bulk chromatin. We have determined the location of newly synthesized repair patches relative to free DNA domains as a function of repair time. Extensive rearrangements of repair patches from these domains into micrococcal nuclease-resistant DNA were observed. Our results indicate that periodic changes of chromatin organization associated with rearrangement of repair patches accompany the process of excision repair in mammalian cells.     

A rapid non-radioactive technique for measurement of repair synthesis in primary human fibroblasts by incorporation of ethynyl deoxyuridine (EdU)

Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. Afflicted patients show extreme sun-sensitivity and skin cancer predisposition. XP is in most cases associated with deficient nucleotide excision repair (NER), which is the process responsible for removing photolesions from DNA. Measuring NER activity by nucleotide incorporation into repair patches, termed ‘unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS)’, is one of the most commonly used assays for XP-diagnosis and NER research. We have established a rapid and accurate procedure for measuring UDS by replacement of thymidine with 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU). EdU incorporated into repair patches can be directly conjugated to fluorescent azide derivatives, thereby obviating the need for either radiolabeled thymidine or denaturation and antibody detection of incorporated bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). We demonstrate that the EdU incorporation assay is compatible with conventional techniques such as immunofluorescent staining and labeling of cells with micro-latex beads. Importantly, we can complete the entire UDS assay within half a day from preparation of the assay coverslips; this technique may prove useful as a method for XP diagnosis.     

Two different mechanisms are involved for the bleomycin-induced DNA repair synthesis in permeabilized HeLa cells

Bleomycin-induced DNA repair synthesis in the permeabilized HeLa cells was sensitive to aphidicolin, an inhibitor of DNA polymerase alpha and delta, and to dideoxythymidine triphosphate (ddTTP), a specific inhibitor of DNA polymerase beta. Upon combined treatment with these inhibitors, the DNA repair synthesis was inhibited to an even higher degree. This indicated that the aphidicolin- and ddTTP-sensitive DNA repair syntheses may occur by independent mechanisms. The structure of incomplete repair patches being accumulated in the presence of these inhibitors was investigated by digestion of DNA with exonuclease III after incubation with Klenow fragment and T4 DNA ligase. The results have suggested that the patch accumulating in the presence of aphidicolin is a single-stranded gap made by excision enzyme(s), whereas that accumulating in the presence of ddTTP may be generated by strand displacement.     

Repair Responses to DNA Damage: Enzymatic Pathways in E coli and Human Cells

Bacteria and eukaryotic cells employ a variety of enzymatic pathways to remove damage from DNA or to lessen its impact upon cellular functions. Most of these processes were discovered in Escherichia coli and have been most extensively analyzed in this organism because suitable mutants have been isolated and characterized. Analogous pathways have been inferred to exist in mammalian cells from the presence of enzyme activities similar to those known to be involved in repair in bacteria, from the analysis of events in cells treated with DNA damaging agents, and from the analysis of the few naturally occurring mutant cell types. Excision repair of pyrimidine dimers produced by UV in E coli is initiated by an incision event catalyzed by a complex composed of uvrA, uvrB, and uvrC gene products. Multiple exonuclease and polymerase activities are available for the subsequent excision and resynthesis steps. In addition to the constitutive pathway, which produces short patches of 20–30 nucleotides, an inducible excision repair process exists that produces much longer patches. This long patch pathway is controlled by the recA-lexA regulatory circuit and also requires the recF gene. It is apparently not responsible for UV-induced mutagenesis. However, the ability to perform inducible long patch repair correlates with enhanced bacterial survival and with a major component of the Weigle reactivation of bacteriophage with double-strand DNA genomes. Mammalian cells possess an excision repair pathway similar to the constitutive pathway in E coli. Although not as well understood, the incision event is at least as complex, and repair resynthesis produces patches of about the same size as the constitutive short patches. In mammalian cells, no patches comparable in size to those produced by the inducible pathway of E coli are observed. Repair in mammalian cells may be more complicated than in bacteria because of the structure of chromatin, which can affect both the distribution of DNA damage and its accessibility to repair enzymes. A coordinated alteration and reassembly of chromatin at sites of repair may be required. We have observed that the sensitivity of digestion by staphylococcal nuclease (SN) of newly synthesized repair patches resulting from excision of furocoumarin adducts changes with time in the same way as that of patches resulting from excision of pyrimidine dimers. Since furocoumarin adducts are formed only in the SN-sensitive linker DNA between nucleosome cores, this suggests that after repair resynthesis is completed, the nucleosome cores in the region of the repair event do not return exactly to their original positions. We have also studied excision repair of UV and chemical damage in the highly repeated 172 base pair α DNA sequence in African green monkey cells. In UV irradiated cells, the rate and extent of repair resynthesis in this sequence is similar to that in bulk DNA. However, in cells containing furocoumarin adducts, repair resynthesis in α DNA is only about 30% of that in bulk DNA. Since the frequency of adducts does not seem to be reduced in α DNA, it appears that certain adducts in this unique DNA may be less accessible to repair. Endonuclease V of bacteriophage T4 incises DNA at pyrimidine dimers by cleaving first the glycosylic bond between deoxyribose and the 5′ pyrimidine of the dimer and then the phosphodiester bond between the two pyrimidines. We have cloned the gene (denV) that codes for this enzyme and have demonstrated its expression in uvrA recA and uvrB recA cells of E coli. Because T4 endonuclease V can alleviate the excision repair deficiency of xeroderma pigmentosum when added to permeabilized cells or to isolated nuclei after UV irradiation, the cloned denV gene may ultimately be of value for analyzing DNA repair pathways in cultured human cells.     

Micro-irradiation tools to visualize base excision repair and single-strand break repair

Microscopy and micro-irradiation imaging techniques have significantly advanced our knowledge of DNA damage tolerance and the assembly of DNA repair proteins at the sites of damage. While these tools have been extensively applied to the study of nucleotide excision repair and double-strand break repair, their application to the repair of oxidatively-induced base lesions and single-strand breaks is just beginning to yield new insights. This review will focus on examining micro-irradiation techniques reported to create base lesions and single-strand breaks; these lesions are considered to be primarily addressed by proteins involved in the base excision repair (BER) pathway. By examining conditions for generating these DNA lesions and reviewing information on the assembly and dissociation of repair complexes at the induced lesion sites, we hope to promote further investigations into BER and to stimulate further development and enhancement of these techniques for the study of BER.     

Acetylation regulates DNA repair mechanisms in human cells

The p300-mediated acetylation of enzymes involved in DNA repair and replication has been previously shown to stimulate or inhibit their activities in reconstituted systems. To explore the role of acetylation on DNA repair in cells we constructed plasmid substrates carrying inactivating damages in the EGFP reporter gene, which should be repaired in cells through DNA mismatch repair (MMR) or base excision repair (BER) mechanisms. We analyzed efficiency of repair within these plasmid substrates in cells exposed to deacetylase and acetyltransferase inhibitors, and also in cells deficient in p300 acetyltransferase. Our results indicate that protein acetylation improves DNA mismatch repair in MMR-proficient HeLa cells and also in MMR-deficient HCT116 cells. Moreover, results suggest that stimulated repair of mismatches in MMR-deficient HCT116 cells is done though a strand-displacement synthesis mechanism described previously for Okazaki fragments maturation and also for the EXOI-independent pathway of MMR. Loss of p300 reduced repair of mismatches in MMR-deficient cells, but did not have evident effects on BER mechanisms, including the long patch BER pathway. Hypoacetylation of the cells in the presence of acetyltransferase inhibitor, garcinol generally reduced efficiency of BER of 8-oxoG damage, indicating that some steps in the pathway are stimulated by acetylation.     

The post-incision steps of the DNA base excision repair pathway in Escherichia coli: studies with a closed circular DNA substrate containing a single U:G base pair.

The DNA base excision repair pathway is responsible for removal of oxidative and endogenous DNA base damage in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. This pathway involves formation of an apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site in the DNA, which is further processed to restore the integrity of the DNA. In Escherichia coli it has been suggested that the major mode of repair involves replacement of a single nucleotide at the AP site, based on repair synthesis studies using oligonucleotide substrates containing a unique uracil base. The mechanism of the post-incision steps of the bacterial base excision repair pathway was examined using a DNA plasmid substrate containing a single U:G base pair. Repair synthesis carried out by repair-proficient ung, recJ and xon E.coli cell extracts was analyzed by restriction endonuclease cleavage of the DNA containing the uracil lesion. It was found that replacement of the uracil base was always accompanied by replacement of several nucleotides ( approximately 15) 3' of the uracil and this process was absolutely dependent on initial removal of the uracil base by the action of uracil-DNA glycosylase. In contrast to findings with oligonucleotide substrates, replacement of just a single nucleotide at the lesion site was not detected. These results suggest that repair patch length may be substrate dependent and a re-evaluation of the post-incision steps of base excision repair is suggested.     

Isolation of human complexes proficient in nucleotide excision repair.

More than 20 polypeptides are required for the process of nucleotide excision repair (NER) in both human and yeast cells. This pathway of excision repair has most often been viewed as an ordered multi-step process involving steps of damage recognition, incision/excision and finally repair DNA synthesis. Here we present evidence for the existence of a complex of human NER proteins pre-assembled in the absence of damaged DNA. This multi-protein complex was initially isolated from HeLa cell extracts by affinity chromatography on a matrix containing the damage recognition protein XPA. Subsequent co-immunoprecipitation and gel filtration experiments demonstrated that a significant portion of the human NER proteins was present in the form of a high molecular weight complex and that these complexes, or repairosomes, were capable of performing all steps of NER in vitro . Consistent with studies indicating that DNA polymerasesdeltaandstraightepsiloncan both function in NER, these two polymerases are found in these repairosome complexes.     

Product-assisted catalysis in base-excision DNA repair

Most spontaneous damage to bases in DNA is corrected through the action of the base-excision DNA repair pathway. Base excision repair is initiated by DNA glycosylases, lesion-specific enzymes that intercept aberrant bases in DNA and catalyze their excision. How such proteins accomplish the feat of catalyzing no fewer than five sequential reaction steps using a single active site has been unknown. To help answer this, we report the structure of a trapped catalytic intermediate in DNA repair by human 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase. This structure and supporting biochemical results reveal that the enzyme sequesters the excised lesion base and exploits it as a cofactor to participate in catalysis. To our knowledge, the present example represents the first documented case of product-assisted catalysis in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction.     

Hypomethylation of repair patches in HeLa cells

In HeLa cells, under conditions where normal semiconservative synthesis is suppressed by hydroxyurea, the excision repair process after irradiation by UV results in a small amount of incorporation of nucleotides into nonreplicated DNA. By labelling the cytosine moieties of these repair patches, and measuring the ratio between cytosine and 5-methylcytosine, we have found that the level of methylation of cytosine in repair patches five hours after UV-irradiation of the cells is about half of that observed in normal semiconservatively synthesized DNA.     

Focal sites of DNA repair synthesis in human chromosomes

Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is the principle pathway by which the human cells eliminate UV-induced lesions from their genomic DNA. The process can be visualized through the labelling of the nucleotides that are incoporated into repair patches, following the excision of the damaged stretch of DNA. In this study we have visualized sites of DNA repair synthesis (DRS) in human interphase and metaphase chromosomes after very short times (2.5-30 min) of postirradiation labelling in vivo with 5-iododeoxyuridine. A limited number (<50 per nucleus) of discrete nuclear DRS sites were seen in cells fixed immediately after labelling and the sites are also detectable in interphase and metaphase chromosomes visualized 48h after irradiation (3 J/m2). These observations strongly support the view that within a given short time window distinct chromosome domains are under extensive repair while in many other domains NER is slow. They argue against the general distributative NER process but are consistent with a processive scanning of damaged domains.     

Reconstitution of proliferating cell nuclear antigen-dependent repair of apurinic/apyrimidinic sites with purified human proteins

An apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site is one of the most abundant lesions spontaneously generated in living cells and is also a reaction intermediate in base excision repair. In higher eukaryotes, there are two alternative pathways for base excision repair: a DNA polymerase beta-dependent pathway and a proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)-dependent pathway. Here we have reconstituted PCNA-dependent repair of AP sites with six purified human proteins: AP endonuclease, replication factor C, PCNA, flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1), DNA polymerase delta, and DNA ligase I. The length of nucleotides replaced during the repair reaction (patch size) was predominantly two nucleotides, although longer patches of up to seven nucleotides could be detected. Neither replication protein A nor Ku70/80 enhanced the repair activity in this system. Disruption of the PCNA-binding site of either FEN1 or DNA ligase I significantly reduced efficiency of AP site repair but did not affect repair patch size.     

Replication protein A stimulates proliferating cell nuclear antigen-dependent repair of abasic sites in DNA by human cell extracts.

Base excision repair (BER) pathway is the major cellular process for removal of endogenous base lesions and apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites in DNA. There are two base excision repair subpathways in mammalian cells, characterized by the number of nucleotides synthesized into the excision patch. They are the "single-nucleotide" (one nucleotide incorporated) and the "long-patch" (several nucleotides incorporated) BER pathways. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is known to be an essential factor in long-patch base excision repair. We have studied the role of replication protein A (RPA) in PCNA-dependent, long-patch BER of AP sites in human cell extracts. PCNA and RPA were separated from the other BER proteins by fractionation of human whole-cell extract on a phosphocellulose column. The protein fraction PC-FII (phosphocellulose fraction II), which does not contain RPA and PCNA but otherwise contains all core BER proteins required for PCNA-dependent BER (AP endonuclease, DNA polymerases delta, beta and DNA ligase, and FEN1 endonuclease), had reduced ability to repair plasmid DNA containing AP sites. Purified PCNA or RPA, when added separately, could only partially restore the PC-FII repair activity of AP sites. However, additions of both proteins together greatly stimulated AP site repair by PC-FII. These results demonstrate a role for RPA in PCNA-dependent BER of AP sites.