Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.21.64 (proteinase K)
 4,071 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Alkaline elution is a sensitive and commonly used technique to detect cellular DNA damage in the form of DNA strand breaks and DNA cross-links. Conventional alkaline elution procedures have extensive equipment requirements and are tedious to perform. Our laboratory recently presented a rapid, simplified, and sensitive modification of the alkaline elution technique to detect carcinogen-induced DNA strand breaks. In the present study, we have further modified this technique to enable the rapid characterization of chemically induced DNA-interstrand and DNA-protein associated cross-links in cultured epithelial cells. Cells were exposed to three known DNA cross-linking agents, nitrogen mustard (HN2), mitomycin C (MMC), or ultraviolet irradiation (UV). One hour exposures of HN2 at 0.25, 1.0, and 4.0 microM or of MMC at 20, 40, and 60 microM produced a dose-dependent induction of total DNA cross-links by these agents. Digestion with proteinase K revealed that HN2 and MMC induced both DNA-protein cross-links and DNA-interstrand cross-links. Ultraviolet irradiation induced both DNA cross-links and DNA strand breaks, the latter of which were either protein and nonprotein associated. The results demonstrate that gravity-flow alkaline elution is a sensitive and accurate method to characterize the molecular events of DNA cross-linking. Using this procedure, elution of DNA from treated cells is completed in 1 hr, and only three fractions per sample are analyzed. This method may be useful as a rapid screening assay for genotoxicity and/or as an adjunct to other predictive assays for potential mutagenic or carcinogenic agents.
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PMID:Rapid detection of DNA-interstrand and DNA-protein cross-links in mammalian cells by gravity-flow alkaline elution. 249 39

We have used the technique of alkaline elution to determine the amount of nitrogen mustard (HN2)-induced DNA cross-linking in a murine fibrosarcoma tumor in vivo. Mice were either treated with HN2 directly or were pretreated with misonidazole (MISO) or diethyl maleate prior to injection with HN2. Two types of HN2-induced DNA lesions were detected, namely, proteinase K-sensitive and -resistant cross-links. Pretreatment with MISO did not appear to affect the ratio of the two types of lesion. In mice treated with HN2 alone, the amount of cross-linking reached a high level by 0.5 hr postinjection, after which these lesions were repaired, 62% of cross-links being removed between 0.5 hr and 6 hr postinjection. Pretreatment of mice with MISO resulted in substantial alterations in both the magnitude and time course of cross-linking during the first few hr after injection of HN2. Both MISO and diethyl maleate enhanced the number of cross-links formed at 0.5 hr postinjection. Furthermore, in MISO-pretreated mice, only 18% of the cross-links present at 0.5 hr had been removed by 6 hr postinjection. This early enhancement is possibly related to glutathione depletion resulting in reduced intracellular inactivation of HN2. Since repair processes were determined not to be saturated at the level of lesions under study, these data suggest that, in addition to the initial glutathione depletion resulting in an increased burden of damage, MISO may also inhibit DNA repair processes, possibly via a hypoxia-dependent interaction between MISO reduction products and DNA or repair enzymes. Assuming that DNA cross-linking is related to the cytotoxicity of HN2, these effects may account for the MISO enhancement of HN2 toxicity toward various biological systems which have been reported previously. It appears that chemosensitization may result from a variety of factors, with the relative importance of each factor depending on the particular drug being used.
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PMID:Enhancement of the DNA cross-linking activity of nitrogen mustard by misonidazole and diethyl maleate in a mouse fibrosarcoma tumor in vivo. 669 65