DNA-protein crosslinks (DPC) involving all major histones are the dominant form of DNA damage in formaldehyde-exposed cells. In order to understand the repair mechanisms for these lesions we conducted detailed analysis of the stability of formaldehyde-induced DPC in vitro and in human cells. DNA-histone linkages were found to be hydrolytically unstable, with t(1/2) = 18.3 h at 37 degrees C. When histones were allowed to remain bound to DNA after crosslink breakage, the half-life of DPC increased to 26.3 h. This suggests that approximately 30% of spontaneously broken DPC could be re-established under physiological conditions. The half-lives of DPC in three human cell lines (HF/SV fibroblasts, kidney Ad293 and lung A549 cells) were similar and averaged 12.5 h (range 11.6-13.0 h). After adjustment for spontaneous loss, an active repair process was calculated to eliminate DPC from these cells with an average t(1/2) = 23.3 h. Removal of DPC from peripheral human lymphocytes was slower (t(1/2) = 18.1 h), due to inefficient active repair (t(1/2) = 66.6 h). This indicates that the major portion of DPC is lost from lymphocytes through spontaneous hydrolysis rather than being actively repaired. Depletion of intracellular glutathione from A549 cells had no significant effect on the initial levels of DPC, the rate of their repair or cell survival. Nucleotide excision repair does not appear to be involved in the removal of DPC, since the kinetics of DPC elimination in XP-A and XP-F fibroblasts were very similar to normal cells. Incubation of normal or XP-A cells with lactacystin, a specific inhibitor of proteosomes, caused inhibition of DPC repair, suggesting that the active removal of DPC in cells may involve proteolytic degradation of crosslinked proteins. XP-F cells showed somewhat higher sensitivity to formaldehyde, possibly signaling participation of XPF protein in the removal of residual peptide-DNA adducts.

Reductive activation of carcinogenic Cr(VI) is required for the induction of DNA damage and mutations. Here, we examined the formation of Cr-DNA adducts in the reactions of Cr(VI) with its dominant biological reducer, vitamin C (ascorbate). Reductive conversion of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) by ascorbate produced stable Cr-DNA adducts, of which approximately 25% constituted ascorbate-Cr(III)-DNA cross-links. No evidence was found for the involvement of Cr(V) or Cr(IV) intermediates in the formation of either binary or ternary adducts. The cross-linking reaction was consistent with the attack of DNA by transient Cr(III)-ascorbate complexes. The yield of Cr(III)-DNA adducts was similar on dsDNA and AGT, ACT, or CT oligonucleotides and was strongly inhibited by Mg(2+), suggesting predominant coordination of Cr(III) to DNA phosphate oxygens. We also detected cross-linking of ascorbate to DNA in Cr(VI)-exposed human lung A549 cells that were preincubated with dehydroascorbic acid to create normal levels of intracellular ascorbate. Ascorbate-Cr-DNA cross-links accounted for approximately 6% of the total Cr-DNA adducts in A549 cells. Shuttle-vector experiments showed that ascorbate-Cr-DNA cross-links were mutagenic in human cells. Our results demonstrate that in addition to reduction of Cr(VI) to DNA-reactive Cr(III), vitamin C contributes to the genotoxicity of Cr(VI) via a direct chemical modification of DNA. The absence of Asc in A549 and other human cultured cells indicates that cells maintained under the usual in vitro conditions lack the most important reducing agent for Cr(VI) and would primarily display slow thiol-dependent activation of Cr(VI).

Reduction of carcinogenic Cr(VI) by vitamin C generates ascorbate-Cr(III)-DNA cross-links, binary Cr(III)-DNA adducts, and can potentially cause oxidative DNA damage by intermediate reaction products. Here, we examined the mutational spectrum and the importance of different forms of DNA damage in genotoxicity and mutagenicity of Cr(VI) activated by physiological concentrations of ascorbate. Reduction of Cr(VI) led to a dose-dependent formation of both mutagenic and replication-blocking DNA lesions as detected by propagation of the pSP189 plasmids in human fibroblasts. Disruption of Cr-DNA binding abolished mutagenic responses and normalized the yield of replicated plasmids, indicating that Cr-DNA adducts were responsible for both mutagenicity and genotoxicity of Cr(VI). The absence of DNA breaks and abasic sites confirmed the lack of a significant production of hydroxyl radicals and Cr(V)-peroxo complexes in Cr(VI)-ascorbate reactions. Ascorbate-Cr(III)-DNA cross-links were much more mutagenic than smaller Cr(III)-DNA adducts and accounted for more than 90% of Cr(VI) mutagenicity. Ternary adducts were also several times more potent in the inhibition of replication than binary complexes. The Cr(VI)-induced mutational spectrum consisted of an approximately equal number of deletions and G/C-targeted point mutations (51% G/C --> T/A and 30% G/C --> A/T). In Escherichia coli cells, Cr(VI)-induced DNA adducts were only highly genotoxic but not mutagenic under either normal or SOS-induced conditions. Lower toxicity and high mutagenicity of ascorbate-Cr(III)-DNA adducts in human cells may result from the recruitment of an error-prone bypass DNA polymerase(s) to the stalled replication forks. Our results suggest that phosphotriester-type DNA adducts could play a more important role in human than bacterial mutagenesis.

Intracellular reduction of carcinogenic Cr(VI) generates Cr-DNA adducts formed through the coordination of Cr(III) to DNA phosphates (phosphotriester-type adduct). Here, we examined the role of Cr(III)-DNA adducts in mutagenesis induced by metabolism of Cr(VI) with cysteine. Reduction of Cr(VI) caused a strong oxidation of 2', 7'-dichlorofluoroscin (DCFH) and extensive Cr-DNA binding but no DNA breakage. Cr-DNA adducts induced unwinding of supercoiled plasmids and structural distortions in the DNA helix as detected by decreased ethidium bromide binding. Propagation of Cr-treated pSP189 plasmids in human fibroblasts led to a dose-dependent formation of the supF mutants and inhibition of replication. Blocking of Cr(III)-DNA binding by occupation of DNA phosphates with Mg(2+) or by sequestration of Cr(III) by inorganic phosphate or EDTA eliminated mutagenic responses and restored a normal yield of replicated plasmids. Dissociation of Cr(III) from DNA by a phosphate-based reversal procedure returned mutation frequency to background levels. The mutagenic responses at the different phases of the reduction reaction were unrelated to the amount of reduced Cr(VI) but reflected the number and the spectrum of Cr(III)-DNA adducts that were formed. Ternary cysteine-Cr(III)-DNA adducts were approximately 4-5 times more mutagenic than binary Cr(III)-DNA adducts. Although intermediate reaction products (CrV/IV, thiyl radicals) were capable of oxidizing DCFH, they were insufficiently reactive to damage DNA. Single-base substitutions at G/C pairs were the predominant type of Cr-induced mutations. The majority of mutations occurred at the sites where G had adjacent purine in the 3' or 5' position. Overall, our results present the first evidence that Cr(III)-DNA adducts play the dominant role in the mutagenicity caused by the metabolism of Cr(VI) by a biological reducing agent.

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Nucleotide excision repair (NER)1 is the major DNA repair mechanism responsible for the removal of UV light-induced DNA lesions and bulky DNA adducts generated by many chemical mutagens (1, 2). Elimination of DNA damage by NER is a highly coordinated process consisting of recognition of the damaged site, excision of a short oligonucleotide containing the DNA lesion, and filling in of the repair-generated gap by a DNA polymerase, followed by ligation of the nick. In vitro reconstitution experiments with protein preparations from human cells have identified six core factors that are required for recognition and excision of bulky DNA modifications: XPA protein, XPC HR23B complex, replication protein A heterotrimer, multisubunit transcription factor IIH complex, and two structure-specific nucleases, XPG and XPF-ERCC1 (3). NER consists of two subpathways that specialize in the removal of DNA lesions from either the entire genome (global NER) or the transcribed strands (transcription-coupled NER) (2). The difference in these two subpathways lies in the mechanisms of lesion detection. The initial damage recognition in global NER is usually performed by the XPC-HR23B complex (4, 5), which may require additional factors for sensing DNA modifications that cause relatively minor duplex distortions. For example, efficient global repair of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and recruitment of XPC are dependent on the presence of the UV-DDB (UV-damaged DNA-binding factor) protein complex (6, 7). In transcription-coupled NER, DNA lesions are detected by stalling of RNA polymerase II, followed by the recruitment of the NER core machinery with the help of three additional proteins, CSA, CSB, and XAB2 (2, 8).The most common substrates for NER are bulky base lesions causing a major disruption of hydrogen bonding (2). Smaller chemical modifications of DNA bases formed by oxidative damage and alkylating agents are usually repaired by the base excision repair process (2, 9). Although major caretakers of DNA bases are now known, the nature of human repair processes involved in preserving the integrity of the DNA phosphate backbone is not well understood. The DNA phosphate group is a frequent site of adduct formation by chemical carcinogens and chemotherapeutic drugs (10 -12). Alkylation of DNA phosphates generates alkylphosphotriesters that, in Escherichia coli, are repaired via a non-NER process involving the Ada protein (13). Ada homologs have not been found in human cells (1, 9), raising the question of whether DNA phosphate adducts could be substrates for NER, which has not yet been clearly addressed. Protein extracts from hamster cells have been found to excise only very small amounts of methylphosphotriester-containing oligonucleotides (14), but this result could have reflected the inefficiency of the in vitro NER. However, persistence of DNA alkylphosphotriesters in human fibroblasts was reported to be independent of the NER status (15), although the employed analytical methodology was not very specific.In this work, we exami...

DNA-protein crosslinks (DPC) involving all major histones are the dominant form of DNA damage in formaldehyde-exposed cells. In order to understand the repair mechanisms for these lesions we conducted detailed analysis of the stability of formaldehyde-induced DPC in vitro and in human cells. DNA-histone linkages were found to be hydrolytically unstable, with t(1/2) = 18.3 h at 37 degrees C. When histones were allowed to remain bound to DNA after crosslink breakage, the half-life of DPC increased to 26.3 h. This suggests that approximately 30% of spontaneously broken DPC could be re-established under physiological conditions. The half-lives of DPC in three human cell lines (HF/SV fibroblasts, kidney Ad293 and lung A549 cells) were similar and averaged 12.5 h (range 11.6-13.0 h). After adjustment for spontaneous loss, an active repair process was calculated to eliminate DPC from these cells with an average t(1/2) = 23.3 h. Removal of DPC from peripheral human lymphocytes was slower (t(1/2) = 18.1 h), due to inefficient active repair (t(1/2) = 66.6 h). This indicates that the major portion of DPC is lost from lymphocytes through spontaneous hydrolysis rather than being actively repaired. Depletion of intracellular glutathione from A549 cells had no significant effect on the initial levels of DPC, the rate of their repair or cell survival. Nucleotide excision repair does not appear to be involved in the removal of DPC, since the kinetics of DPC elimination in XP-A and XP-F fibroblasts were very similar to normal cells. Incubation of normal or XP-A cells with lactacystin, a specific inhibitor of proteosomes, caused inhibition of DPC repair, suggesting that the active removal of DPC in cells may involve proteolytic degradation of crosslinked proteins. XP-F cells showed somewhat higher sensitivity to formaldehyde, possibly signaling participation of XPF protein in the removal of residual peptide-DNA adducts.

Induction of DNA damage by carcinogenic hexavalent chromium compounds [Cr(VI)] results from its reduction to lower oxidation states. Reductive metabolism of Cr(VI) generates intermediate Cr(V/IV)species, organic radicals, and finally Cr(III), which forms stable complexes with many biological ligands, including DNA. To determine the biological significance of different reaction products, we examined genotoxic responses and the formation of DNA damage during reduction of Cr(VI) by its biological reducer, cysteine. We have found that cysteine-dependent activation of Cr(VI) led to the formation of Cr-DNA and cysteine-Cr-DNA adducts as well as interstrand DNA cross-links. The yield of binary and ternary DNA adducts was relatively constant at different concentrations of Cr(VI) and averaged approximately 54 and 45%, respectively. Interstrand DNA cross-links accounted on average for 1% of adducts, and their yield was even less significant at low Cr(VI) concentrations. Reduction of Cr(VI) in several commonly used buffers did not induce detectable damage to the sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA. Replication of Cr(VI)-modified plasmids in intact human fibroblasts has shown that cysteine-dependent metabolism of Cr(VI) resulted in the formation of mutagenic and replication-blocking DNA lesions. Selective elimination of Cr-DNA adducts from Cr(VI)-treated plasmids abolished all genotoxic responses, indicating that nonoxidative, Cr(III)-dependent reactions were responsible for the induction of both mutagenicity and replication blockage by Cr(VI). The demonstration of the mutagenic potential of Cr-DNA adducts suggests that these lesions can be explored in the development of specific and mechanistically important biomarkers of exposure to toxic forms of Cr.