Chronic low-dose lesion equilibrium along genes: measurement, molecular epidemiology, and theory of the minimal relevant dose

Abstract

Spontaneous mutations seem to be caused almost entirely by endogenous lesions. The pattern of these lesions along a gene represents an equilibrium between damage and repair. A pattern can be measured using ligation-mediated PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and a large chronic dose of a suspected endogenous mutagen. A study using dimethylsulfate-induced 7 meGuanine lesions indicates that the exogenously induced pattern depends on how methyl purine glycosylase recognizes sequence context and, for this lesion, the pattern may be independent of the mutagen's dose.