title: Aberrant replication of chromosomal DNA segments in CHO cells as a manifestation of a DNA repair system.
abstract: We have previously demonstrated that transient blocking of DNA synthesis with drugs such as 1-beta-D-arabinofuranosylcytosine results in some segments of the chromosomal DNA being replicated more than once in a single cell cycle. One explanation for this phenomenon might be that it is due to a perturbation of the cellular mechanism which normally controls the process of initiating replication of the chromosomal DNA and which ensures that each DNA segment is normally replicated once only in each cell cycle. To examine an alternative explanation, we have used the Chinese hamster ovary CHO-K1 cell line to test whether UV irradiation induces aberrant double replication of chromosomal DNA segments. We present data which show that UV irradiation induces a linear increase (regression coefficient, 0.996) in aberrant reinitiation of DNA replication in DNA segments replicated earlier in the same cell cycle. This was shown by DNA strands labelled with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) being synthesized off 3H-labelled template strands which were themselves synthesized during a [3H]thymidine pulse shortly before the UV irradiation. We suggest that blocked replication forks trigger an emergency response to unreplicated DNA segments in which abnormal origins of replication are used to circumvent this damage. This results in abnormal patterns of DNA replication, and it occurs whether DNA replication forks are blocked metabolically (such as with an inhibitor of DNA polymerase) or physically (as in the case of pyrimidine dimers).
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D002499:Centrifugation, Density Gradient; D006224:Cricetinae; D003412:Cricetulus; D004260:DNA Repair; D004261:DNA Replication / Q000528:radiation effects; D005260:Female; D010053:Ovary / Q000378:metabolism; D013698:Templates, Genetic; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays