Relationship of DNA strand breakage produced by bromodeoxyuridine to topoisomerase II activity in Bloom-syndrome fibroblasts

Abstract

Cells from patients with Bloom syndrome, a cancer-prone disorder with cutaneous photosensitivity and spontaneous chromosome breakage, exhibit an abnormally increased number of sister-chromatid exchanges following treatment with 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). This effect has been postulated to be mediated by abnormal topoisomerase II activity. We used alkaline elution to measure DNA single-strand breakage following prolonged exposure to BrdU. Five-day exposure to BrdU produced equal numbers of alkali-labile sites in normal and Bloom-syndrome fibroblasts. These breaks were not protein-associated but were produced by alkali. Treatment with topoisomerase II inhibitors induced similar frequencies of DNA single-strand breaks in normal and Bloom-syndrome fibroblasts. These findings imply that BrdU incorporation into cellular DNA induces alkali-labile DNA lesions that are independent of topoisomerase II activity in Bloom and normal cells.