Scintillometric determination of DNA repair in human cell lines: A critical appraisal

The ability of a variety of chemical and physical agents to stimulate DNA repair synthesis in human cell cultures was tested by a simplified scintillometric procedure, with the use of hydroxyurea (HU) to suppress DNA replicative synthesis. After incubation with ³H]thymidine, the radioactivity incorporated in to DNA was determined in controls (C) and treated (T) cultures and in the corresponding HU series (C_HU, T_HU). The ratios T_HU/C_HU and T_HU/T:C_HU/C, indicating absolute and relative increases of DNA radioactivity, were calculated. When both ratios were significantly higher than 1, they were taken as indices of DNA repair stimulation, whereas, no stimulation in inferred when both of them are ?1. The scintillometric estimate of DNA repair was always in agreement with the autoradiographic observations, so that the procedure adopted can be used as a rapid test for screening investigations.Agents giving a relative but no an absolute increase of DNA radioactivity are generally not inducers of repair synthesis as estimated by autoradiography. However, the same scintillometric results are also occasionally observed with DNA repair inducers, such as methyl methanesulphonate (MMS) and ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS), owing to alterations of thymidine pool radioactivity. These chemicals, besides affecting the levels of labelled precursors in the intracellular pool in the T series, differently modified the increase of pool radioactivity which is a regular effect of HU. With such chemicals, DNA repair synthesis can be detected only after normalization of th DNA radioactivity on the basis of pool alterations.The quantitative value of the autoradiographic estimate of DNA repair is also affected by the changes in the radioactivity of the thymidine pool although autoradiography retains its qualitative value.Dimethylnitrosamine, mitomycin C and potassium dichromate, described by other authors as inducers of DNA repair, also gave negative results by the scintillometric procedure after normalization of DNA radioactivities. However, in our hands, these agents were unable to stimulated repair synthesis, according to the results of autoradiography and isopynic centrifugation.The proposed scintillometric procedure is effective in indicating false negative inducers of DNA repair, not giving rise to false positives.