Use of enzymatic assay to evaluate UV-induced DNA repair in human and embryonic chick fibroblasts and multinucleate heterokaryons derived from both.

A sensitive enzymatic assay has been utilized to monitor repair of UV-induced damage to DNA in primary human and embryonic chick cells and in multinucleate heterokaryons artificially derived from both. The assay exploits the unique ability of a purified repair endonuclease to attack UV-irradiated DNA at sites containing pyrimidine dimers. These nuclease-susceptible sites are subsequently observed as single-strand scissions by velocity sedimentation in alkaline sucrose gradients. Incubation of UV-damaged cultures followed by extraction and enzymatic analysis of the radioactively labeled DNA enables one to trace the disappearance of such sites in vivo and hence to monitor endogenous repair activity. When UV-irradiated human cells are incubated in the dark, the curve for site removal exhibits a two-phase exponetial decline; i.e. there exists a fast component responsible for elimination of 60% of the initial damage and a second one approximately 7 times slower in rate. The removal of sites is not further enhanced by exposing cells to blacklight during post-UV incubation. Conversely, UV-damaged chick cells rid their DNA of all nuclease-susceptible sites rapidly (i.e. at an exponential rate approximately 13 times faster than the fast component of site removal in human cells) when incubated under blacklight but not when kept in the dark. These data indicate the presence in human and embryonic chick cells of distinct enzymatic mechanisms for the elimination of dimer-containing sites. Wheneras human fibroblasts rely heavily on a light-independent process, excision-repair, chick fibroblasts possess a light-dependent mechanism, presumably photoenzymatic repair. Advantage has been taken of the contrasting repair properties of the human and embryonic chick fibroblasts to evaluate the extent to which each can assist the other in the removal of UV-induced damage from its DNA. The two cell types were fused to form giant human/chick heterokaryons containing a number of intact nuclei from both strains. Experimental conditions were selected so that UV-induced damage resided only in DNA foreign to the repair enzymes under study. Our results strongly suggest that repair enzyme(s) coded for by either fusion partner can remove dimer-containing sites from the DNA of the other with an efficiency comparable to that attained when acting on its own DNA in unfused, parental cells. Further, the light-requiring repair process supplied by the chick is more proficient at operating on these sites in human DNA than is excision-repair, the parallel mechanism available to human cells for this purpose.