DNA damage and repair Flashcards
What is the knudson hypothesis?
That there are multiple hits required for carcinogenesis, based on the fact that familial cancers had an earlier onset than sporadic cancers and fitting with the increase of cancer due to age suggested by carl nordling
What did Carl Nordling determine with regards to cancer biology?
Demonstrated that the incidence of carcinoma increases with the 6th power of ages suggesting that this is due to requirement of multiple mutations to accumulate
How stable is the DNA molecule?
It has a high rate of spontaneous mutations caused by replication errors, chemical instability or chemical attack
This instability is countered by extensive repair mechanisms and the adaption of double stranded DNA causing a low genetic error rate
What DNA repair mechanisms reverse DNA damage?
Photo reactivation and Alkyltransferases
What DNA repair mechanisms excise DNA damage?
Base Excision repair, nucleotide excision repair and mismatch repair
What DNA repair mechanisms deal with strand breaks?
Single strand break repair and double strand break repair
What DNA repair mechanisms allow tolerance of DNA damage?
Replicative bypass and translesion DNA synthesis
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the mismatch DNA repair mechanism?
Hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the Base excision DNA repair mechanism?
MUTYH-associated polyposis
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the nucleotide excision DNA repair mechanism?
Xeroderma pigmentosum
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the double stranded DNA break DNA repair mechanism?
Ataxia telangiectasia
AT-like disorder
Nijmegen breakage syndrome
Breast and ovarian cancer
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the homologous recombination repair DNA repair mechanism?
Breast and ovarian cancer
Werner syndrome
Bloom’s syndrome
RIDDLE syndrome
What familial cancer occurs due to mutation in the crosslink DNA repair mechanism?
Fanconi anaemia
What is the Ames test?
A test developed by Bruce Ames using salmonella typhimuriunm histidine auxotrophs which could be exposed to carcinogens resulting in an increase in the number of colonies which reverted back to being heterotrophs showing that most carcinogens are mutagens
What is the difference between a transition and transversion mutation?
A transition mutation is when a purine changes to another purine (or a pyrimidine to another pyrimidine) while a transversion mutation involves the exchange of a purine for a pyrimidine
Are all carcinogens mutagens?
No some act through perturbing regulatory pathways such as those involved cellular proliferation and tumour promoters are often non-genotoxic
What are tumour promoters?
Substances which can not induce cancer on their own but can often act in combination with other substances to increase the risk of cancer
What are examples of non-genotoxic carcinogens?
Peroxisomes proliferators including phthalates whch are used as plasticisers
These bind to the peroxisome proliferator activated receptors which are nuclear receptors involved in proliferation and oxidative stress
Causing both DNA damage and hyperproliferation
What are the assays to detect chromosomal abnormalities and aneuploidy?
Karyotypring often involving chromosome painting and the micronucleus test
What does the micro nucleus test look for?
Chromosomes which have lost their centromere
What are the assays which look for DNA damage?
Comet assay in single gel electrophoresis
Oxidised bases in DNA (especially 8-oxoGuanine)
What are the assays to detect the DNA damage response?
Yh2ax Histone H2AX phosphorylation by ATM
What are the assays to detect mutations defined at genetic loci?
Drug resistance such as HGPRT (Hypoxanthine/guanine phosphoribosyl transferase) which is selected for by resistance to 6-thioguanine
What are the WHO defined groups for classifying substances as carcinogens?
Group 1- Carcingenic to humans
group 2 insufficient evidence
Group 2A probably carcinogenic to humans
Group 2B possibly carcinogenic to humans
Group 3 Not classifiable as to carcinogenicity to humans
Group 4 Probably not carcinogenic to humans
What are some exceptions to the rule of cancers being driven by mutations?
Epigenetic driven cancers such as Rhabdoid Ca an aggressive childhood cancer of the brain, kidney and other organs when sequenced these tumours often appear genotypically normal with only one common mutation in SMARCB1 which is a subunit of SNI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex
Ependymomas which are tumours of the meninges in children where sequencing revealed no common mutations but a common Cpg Methylator phenotype focused on targets of the polycomb repressive complex 2
Are all mutations present in tumours able to be detected by genomic techniques?
No often many of the mutations are only present in one or a few of the tumour cells and are therefore beyond the sensitivity of the assays, however common or clonal mutations which are the key drivers of the cancer will be seen in many cancers and are much easier to detect
What are the consequences of the genomic instability generated in cancer?
There is a very high mutation frequency in tumours
Tumour progression is influenced by Darwinian evolution at the somatic cell level
Any cancer therapy directed against a single target molecule will be unsustainable
Slowing the rate of mutation would have a major impact on cancer
What is unclear about the genomic instability which arises during tumour progression?
It is not clear how or when the instability arises although it is likely to be different when comparing sporadic and familial cancers
How can endogenous nucleases cause DNA damage?
The human genome has many LINE (Long Interspersed element) retrotranspoaons while only a small number of these remain functional they encode an endonuclease that induces DNA double strand breaks
How can Replication infidelity lead to DNA damage?
The energy difference between correctly paired and incorrectly paired base pairs is very small (one H bond) and would have a 1-10% error frequency
This is reduced through DNA polymerase base selection and proofreading, accessory proteins and postreplicative mismatch repair
How can spontaneous alteration to DNA bases lead to DNA damage?
There can be deamination where one base is changed to another or there can be depurination/depyrimidination generating an abasic site
What occurs to DNA in deamination?
In the slow reactions Adenine can be converted to hypoxanthine and Guanine can be converted to xanthine
In a faster reaction Cytosine can be converted to uracil
In the fastest and most significant reaction 5methylcytosine(part of the epigenetic code) can be converted to thymine resulting in a T-G misrepair
How has DNA evolved to maximise stability?
The replacement of Uracil with Thymine in DNA allowing U to be recognized as foreign by DNA repair mechanisms
Double stranded DNA increases the halflife of C
How does Depurination/Depyrimidination affect DNA bases?
There is spontaneous breaking of the deoxyribose-base or glycosidic bond with purine loss being 20 times faster than pyrimidine
This losss generates and abasic site which cause miscoding lesions and, due to the increased instability can result in strand breakage
What are the reactive oxygen and nitrogen species that cause oxidative damage to DNA?
Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species include OH free radical, H2O2, HOCl, ONOO-, NO2 Free radical, CO3- free radical
Of which the most important is the hydroxyl free radical
How is the hydroxyl free radical generated?
Ionising radiation through the radiolysis of water, super oxide from mitochondrial O2 reduction and xenobiotic metabolism
What are the main sites of mitochondrial superoxide generation?
Complex 1 or NADH dehydrogenase which transfers electrons from FMNH2 to Fe-S centres and then to coenzyme q which can all leak electrons to O2
Complex 3
How Is superoxide formed by drug metabolism via redox cycling?
Cyp 450 reductase is a one electron oxygen reductase which reduces CYPS and some xenobiotics and can generate superoxide
How can hydrogen peroxide be detoxified in cells?
Catalase can degrade it to water and oxygen
Glutathione peroxidase can degrade it to it to water and GSSG
How can H2O2 cause DNA damage?
It does not directly cause DNA damage but instead H2O2 is reduced to hydroxyl radicals, by transition metals, commonly Fe2+ in the fenton reaction
How can hypocholorous acid cause DNA damage and provide a mechanistic link between inflammation and carcinogenesis?
This chemical is formed from H2O2 and catalysed by myeloperoxidase in neutrophils
It can chlorinate cytosine to form 5chloroC a 5meC analogue causing epigenetic silencing
And silencing of promoters
5ChloroCpG is a substrate for the maintenance methyltransferase DNMT1 causing methylation of the complimentary strand and perpetuating the epigenetic mutation
How are the reactive nitrogen species formed?
Super oxide reacts with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrate which can then react with CO2 to from the NO2 and CO3 free radicals
What are the protective mechanisms cells have for RONs?
Antioxidant molecules such as glutathione and ascorbate in the cytosol and vitamin E in membranes
Why is d8-oxoguanine an important oxidation product in DNA?
Guanine is the easiest base in DAN to oxidise and forms 8-oxoguanine which mispairs with A, and unlike most modified bases does not block DNA polymerases resulting in G to T transversion mutations