DNA is under constant assault from exogenous agents such as radiation, ultraviolet light, environmental toxins, combustion products, etc. Additionally, it is also attacked by endogenous radical species produced by oxidative metabolism. All of these have the potential to chemically or physically disrupt the integrity of DNA 1. Perturbations in the genome can activate the DNA Damage Response (DDR), a recruitment and post translational modification cascade with hundreds, if not thousands, of proteins and microRNAs involved in lesion repair, regulation of the cell cycle, apoptosis, senescence, and inflammatory pathways 2.
Most of our information about the DDR comes from studies with DSBs. This is in large part due to the availability of technologies for introducing breaks, including sequence specific breaks, in genomic DNA in living cells 3. In addition, the propensity of breaks to induce foci of DDR proteins, which can be displayed by immunofluorescence, has been very helpful for identifying the kinetics and requirements of responding proteins. One of the key technologies for studying the DDR was introduced by Bonner and colleagues, who used a laser beam to direct a stripe of DSBs in a "Region of Interest" (ROI) in the nuclei of living cells 4. In effect, they created a lengthy focus in which proteins of the DDR could be identified by immunofluorescence. This was illustrated by their demonstration of the strong stripe of phosphorylated histone H2AX (γ-H2AX) in the laser exposed cells. Since then, the laser approach has been employed in numerous studies of the DDR induced by DSBs. Although powerful and popular, and the source of dramatic immunofluorescence images, it should be noted that in most experiments the laser intensity is adjusted so as to produce observable results, without concern for lesion identity, density, or spacing. Indeed, it can be difficult to make these estimates. Thus they are largely ignored, despite the multiplicity of lesions introduced into DNA by lasers 5. This contributes to the many contradictions in the literature 6.
In contrast to DSBs, most chemical modifications of DNA do not stimulate the formation of discrete foci of DDR proteins. This is important in the light of our current understanding of lesion frequencies. It has been estimated that human cells in culture incur as many as 50 DSBs per cell cycle, formed largely during S phase 7,8,9. Fewer are formed in non-proliferating cells. This contrasts with the number of nucleobase losses or modification events, which are in the tens of thousands per cell/day 1,10. Thus, we know most about the DDR induced by events that are relatively rare, and much less about those induced by helix distorting lesions, which in aggregate are far more common.
In order to address questions about the cellular response to covalent modifications of genomic DNA, we wanted to work with a helix distorting DNA adduct that had inherent DDR induction activity. Furthermore, to facilitate experimental design and interpretation we were interested in a structure whose introduction could be controlled with respect to time and was amenable to visualization. Accordingly, we developed a strategy based on psoralen. Psoralens are well characterized photoactive DNA intercalators favoring 5' TA:AT sites. Unlike other crosslinking agents such as nitrogen mustards and mitomycin C (MMC) they are not DNA reactive unless exposed to long wave UV (UVA) light. The intercalated molecules react with thymine bases on opposite strands to produce helix distorting interstrand crosslinks (ICLs) 11. With the trimethyl psoralen used in our experiments most products are ICLs, relatively few monoadducts are generated (less than 10%) 12, and intrastrand crosslinks between adjacent bases on one strand are not formed. Because they are powerful blocks to replication and transcription, psoralen and other crosslinking agents, like cis-platinum and MMC, are commonly used in chemotherapy. Thus psoralen enabled studies that followed the activation of the DDR by a helix distorting structure, and also provided insight into the cellular response to a compound with clinical importance.
We synthesized a reagent in which trimethyl psoralen was linked to digoxigenin (Dig), a plant sterol not found in mammalian cells and frequently used as an immunotag. The requirement for photoactivation permits localization by laser light (365 nm) of psoralen ICLs in defined ROI in nuclei in living cells. These can be displayed by immunofluorescence against the Dig tag. DNA repair and DDR proteins appeared in the stripes of laser localized ICLs 13,14.
The DDR activated by the high laser intensities used to produce DSBs could be due to isolated or clustered damage 15,16. Consequently, the relevance of results from these experiments to naturally occurring lesions, present at much lower concentration, is uncertain. To address similar questions about psoralen adduct frequency and spacing in DNA, we took advantage of DNA fiber technology 17 and immunoquantum dots. Quantum dots are much brighter than fluorescent dyes and are not bleached by exposure to light. Thus they are frequently used for single molecule imaging 18, an application for which fluorescent dyes are insufficiently bright. Individual DNA fibers can be stretched on glass slides and can be displayed by immunofluorescence against nucleoside analogues incorporated during incubations prior to cell harvest. We treated cells with Dig-psoralen and exposed the ROI to laser micro irradiation. Fibers were prepared from the cells and individual Dig-psoralen adducts could be visualized with the immunoquantum dots. Exposing the cells to nucleoside analogues for relatively short times (20-60 min) permits the display of replication tracts in the vicinity of the laser localized ICLs.