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Title: Deficient repair of potentially lethal damage in actively growing ataxia telangiectasia cells

Journal Article · · Radiat. Res.; (United States)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2307/3576291· OSTI ID:5126766

The repair of potentially lethal damage after X rays was studied in exponentially growing normal and ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) strains of human fibroblasts. X-ray killing of all normal strains from six healthy persons was enhanced when cells were treated with hypertonic phosphate-buffered saline immediately after irradiation. This treatment is not toxic to unirradiated cells and demonstrates that ordinarily these cells repair potentially lethal damage. The potentially lethal damage in normal cells is repaired within 1 hr. In contrast, all A-T strains from four A-T patients were completely deficient in their ability to repair potentially lethal damage. Treatment with a hypertonic solution after X irradiation is known to increase the frequency of chromosomal aberrations and to enhance cell killing, as though hypertonicity had induced the A-T state in normal cells. These results support the inference that the increased radiosensitivity of A-T cells can be attributed to some defect in the repair of DNA damage rather than abnormal DNA synthesis following irradiation.

Research Organization:
Kyoto Univ., Japan
OSTI ID:
5126766
Journal Information:
Radiat. Res.; (United States), Vol. 97:2
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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