Article

Enhancement of genotoxic effects in the comet assay with human blood samples by aphidicolin.

Universitätsklinikum Ulm, Abteilung Humangenetik, D-89070 Ulm, Germany.
Toxicology Letters (impact factor: 3.23). 11/2004; 153(3):303-10. DOI:10.1016/j.toxlet.2004.04.047 pp.303-10
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT The comet assay (single cell gel electrophoresis) has become increasingly used in human biomonitoring. In its standard version at pH > 13, DNA lesions such as DNA double-strand breaks (DSB), DNA single strand breaks (SSB) and alkali-labile sites (ALS) lead to increased DNA migration. Besides DNA damage, strand break formation during excision repair can also increase DNA migration. Inhibitors of DNA repair have been shown to enhance the DNA effects of mutagens and the use of repair inhibitors has been proposed for human biomonitoring studies to increase the sensitivity of the comet assay. To further evaluate the usefulness of such an approach we performed an experimental study with human blood and tested the enhancing effect of aphidicolin (APC) on DNA effects induced by different mutagens. Our results clearly show that APC enhances the genotoxic effects of benzo[a]pyrene diolepoxide (BPDE), bischloroethylnitrosurea (BCNU) and methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), but has no significant effect on gamma radiation-induced DNA effects. The enhancing effect is seen in unstimulated and PHA-stimulated blood, indicating repair activity under both conditions but the effect is stronger in stimulated blood. Our results indicate that APC can be used to increase the sensitivity of the comet assay towards a broad spectrum of induced primary DNA lesions and support the usefulness of this approach. However, for human biomonitoring, a sensitive protocol still has to be established.

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    Article: Validation of the nucleotide excision repair comet assay on cryopreserved PBMCs to measure inter-individual variation in DNA repair capacity.
    Alessandra Allione, Alessia Russo, Fulvio Ricceri, Kim Vande Loock, Simonetta Guarrera, Floriana Voglino, Micheline Kirsch-Volders, Giuseppe Matullo
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    ABSTRACT: Inter-individual susceptibility to mutagens/carcinogens can be assessed by either genotyping DNA repair genes in different pathways or phenotyping DNA repair capacity (DRC) at the molecular or cellular level. Due to the large number of known DNA repair genes, and the interactions between repair pathways, phenotyping is becoming the preferred approach to measure DRC, and reliable assays are therefore increasingly needed. The use of a cellular phenotype comet assay for the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway using benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide (BPDE) has been described in previous papers, but no thorough evaluation of its applicability in large genotype-phenotype studies has been presented. Our aim was to evaluate the possibility of using cryopreserved instead of fresh peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to evaluate intra- and inter-assay variation, and inter-individual variation, for the aphidicolin (APC)-block NER comet assay. Moreover, we measured the variation for the designated internal standard (K562 erythroleukaemia cell line) and we evaluated the feasibility to use lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) as surrogate of PBMCs. Our results showed a low intra-assay [coefficient of variation (CV) 19.9%] and inter-assay (CV 32.3%) variation, with a good inter-individual variation (122 subjects, mean ± standard deviation 7.38±4.99; range 0.66-26.14; CV 67.63%). A significant correlation between results derived from cryopreserved and fresh PBMCs from the same individuals was found (10 subjects, r = 0.62, P = 0.05). Results from LCLs and cryopreserved PBMCs from the same subjects showed an inverse significant correlation (10 subjects, r = -0.712, P = 0.02). K562 cells as internal standard showed low intra-assay variation. In the present study the APC-block NER comet assay on cryopreserved PBMCs seemed to be a reliable method to measure DRC variation in epidemiological studies; LCLs were not a good surrogate in this assay.
    Mutagenesis 10/2012; · 3.18 Impact Factor
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Keywords

alkali-labile sites
 
APC enhances
 
benzo[a]pyrene diolepoxide
 
comet assay
 
different mutagens
 
DNA double-strand breaks
 
DNA effects
 
DNA effects induced
 
DNA migration
 
DNA single strand breaks
 
enhancing effect
 
gamma radiation-induced DNA effects
 
human biomonitoring studies
 
induced primary DNA lesions
 
methyl methanesulfonate
 
PHA-stimulated blood
 
sensitive protocol
 
significant effect
 
single cell gel electrophoresis
 
strand break formation
 

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