Effects of mitomycin C on the rate of DNA synthesis in normal and Faconi anaemia cells

Abstract

THe effect of low doses mitomycin C (MMC) on DNA synthesis of fibroblast cell lines derived from normal individuals or patient with Fanconi anaemia (FA) was studied. Using low doses of MMC (12 ng/ml), little or no effect was observed on DNA synthesis of normal cells, whereas DNA synthesis of FA cells was greatly inhibited 24 and 48 h after treatment. This was due to a decrease in the number of DNA-synthesizing cells, while the amount of radioactivity incorporated per cell (as measured with grain counting in autoradiograms) remained the same. These findings indicate that the inhibition of semiconservative DNA synthesis induced by MMC in FA cells is not due to an inhibitory effect of unrepaired lesions on the rate of DNA synthesis but rather to a block in cell cycle progression.