SummaryThe nitric oxide (NO)-cyclic GMP pathway contributes to human stem cell differentiation, but NO free radical production can also damage DNA, necessitating a robust DNA damage response (DDR) to ensure cell survival. How the DDR is affected by differentiation is unclear. Differentiation of stem cells, either inducible pluripotent or embryonic derived, increased residual DNA damage as determined by γ-H2AX and 53BP1 foci, with increased S-phase-specific chromosomal aberration after exposure to DNA-damaging agents, suggesting reduced homologous recombination (HR) repair as supported by the observation of decreased HR-related repair factor foci formation (RAD51 and BRCA1). Differentiated cells also had relatively increased fork stalling and R-loop formation after DNA replication stress. Treatment with NO donor (NOC-18), which causes stem cell differentiation has no effect on double-strand break (DSB) repair by non-homologous end-joining but reduced DSB repair by HR. Present studies suggest that DNA repair by HR is impaired in differentiated cells.

Defects in resolving kinetochore-microtubule attachment mistakes during mitosis is linked to chromosome instability associated with carcinogenesis as well as resistance to cancer therapy. Here we report for the first time that tumor suppressor p53-binding protein 1 (53BP1) is phosphorylated at serine 1342 (S1342) by Aurora kinase B both in vitro and in human cells, which is required for optimal recruitment of 53BP1 at kinetochores. Furthermore, 53BP1 staining normally localized on the outer kinetochore, extended to the whole kinetochore when it is merotelically-attached, in concert with mitotic centromere-associated kinesin. Kinetochore-binding of pS1342-53BP1 is essential for efficient resolving of merotelic attachment, a spontaneous kinetochore-microtubule connection error that usually causes aneuploidy. Consistently, loss of 53BP1 results in significant increase in lagging chromosome events, micronuclei formation and aneuploidy, due to the unresolved merotely in both cancer and primary cells, which is prevented by ectopic wild type 53BP1 but not by the nonphophorylable S1342A mutant. We thus document a novel DNA damage-independent function of 53BP1 in maintaining faithful chromosome segregation during mitosis.

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) hold great promise in regenerative medicine, disease modeling, functional genomics, toxicological studies and cell-based therapeutics due to their unique characteristics of self-renewal and pluripotency. Novel methods for generation of pluripotent stem cells and their differentiation to the specialized cell types such as neuronal cells, myocardial cells, hepatocytes, and beta cells of the pancreas and many other cells of the body are constantly being refined. Pluripotent stem cell derived differentiated cells, including neuronal cells or cardiac cells are ideal for stem cell transplantation as autologous or allogeneic cells from healthy donors due to their minimum risks of rejection. DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation (IR), ultraviolet (UV) light, genotoxic stress, and other intrinsic and extrinsic factors trigger a series of biochemical reactions termed as DNA damage response (DDR). In order to maintain genomic stability, and avoid transmission of mutations into progenitors cells, stem cells have robust DNA damage response signaling – a contrast to somatic cells. Stem cell transplantation may over come the late effects related to radiation. This review will particularly focus on differential DNA damage response between stem cells and derived differentiated cells and the possible pathways that determine such differences.

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Using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy(STM) and X-ray diffraction(XRD), we have studied the development of surface roughness on Au(111) during 500eV Ar+ ion irradiation at different angles. During normal incidence erosion the surface roughens and pattern formation occurs. The surface morphology is a mixture of mounds and pits superimposed onto a larger structure of channels and valleys. The characteristic spacing between features grows with a power law behavior t27, where t is the amount of time the sample was irradiated, in agreement with previous measurements[l]. At glancing angles, erosion proceeds smoothly, but not in layer-by-layer fashion. Finally, a combination of glancing angle and normal incidence erosion is used to create a rippled morphology

Articles you may be interested inThe dependence of the intensity of surface scattered signals on surface wave characteristics.

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