Typical xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group A fibroblasts have detectable ultraviolet light-induced unscheduled DNA synthesis

Abstract

Ultraviolet-induced nuclear uptake of tritiated thymidine [ 3H]dThd demonstrable by autoradiography in non-synthesis phases of the cell cycle is known as unscheduled DNA synthesis and reflects repair replication of ultraviolet-damaged DNA. We have reported that the rate of any such unscheduled DNA synthesis in typical group A xeroderma pigmentosum fibroblasts, if present, is less than 2% of the normal rate. We have now performed experiments to determine whether these fibroblasts have any unscheduled DNA synthesis. Fibroblast coverslip cultures of four xeroderma pigmentosum group A strains were prepared. Irradiated (254 nm ultraviolet light) and unirradiated cultures from each strain were incubated with [ 3H]dThd at 37°C, and autoradiograms were prepared using NTB-3 emulsion. A nuclear grain count was made of 100 consecutive nuclei of non-S-phase irradiated and unirradiated cells. A slide background grain count was simultaneously made from an acellular area adjacent to each cell analyzed. When a strain's irradiated and unirradiated autoradiograms having similar slide background grain count averages were compared, the nuclear grain count average of the irradiated cells was always higher than that of the unirradiated cells. This ultraviolet-induced increase in the mean nuclear grain count ranged from 0.4 to 1.3% of that given by normal non-xeroderma pigmentosum fibroblasts and was not reduced by 10 −2 M hydroxyurea. Planimetric studies showed that the ultraviolet-induced increase in nuclear grain count is not due to an increased nuclear area in irradiated cells. We conclude that these typical group A xeroderma pigmentosum strains perform very low, but detectable, ultraviolet-induced unscheduled DNA synthesis which probably reflects repair replication. We cannot, however, determine if there are significantly different rates of ultraviolet-induced unscheduled DNA synthesis among these ultraviolet strains.