Repair of potentially lethal radiation damage in confluent and non-confluent cultures of human hybrid cells

Improved alkaline comet assay protocol for adherent HaCaT keratinocytes to study UVA-induced DNA damage

The comet assay is one of the well-accepted tests to measure radiation-induced DNA damage. The most commonly used protocols require single-cell suspensions that are embedded in agarose in order to perform electrophoresis. For adherently growing cells such as human HaCaT skin keratinocytes this method bears several problems. We show that trypsinization required for maintaining single-cell suspensions is prolonged after UV radiation and thereby reduces cell viability and allows partial repair, with the consequence of reduced damage detection after irradiation. Therefore, we here introduce a modified version of the comet assay where HaCaT cells are seeded onto comet slides 24h before the assay and overlaid with agarose immediately after irradiation. Using this modification we are now able to reproducibly measure high DNA-damage levels (13-fold increase compared with controls) following irradiation with 60J/cm(2) UVA as well as a dose-dependent increase of DNA damage after 10, 20 and 60J/cm(2) UVA. Thus, by maintaining the cells in their natural configuration, i.e. adherently growing, we exclude several artefacts that are likely to influence the damage responses. These include: (i) trypsinization-dependent changes in cell morphology and polarity (clear lateral, i.e. adherent, and apical side of keratinocytes) which are likely of consequence for the gene-expression pattern, (ii) trypsin- and dislodgement-induced damage reducing cell viability, and (iii) the time delay between damage induction and damage evaluation to unpredictable results due to partial repair. Since these advantages pertain to all adherently growing cells, this improved protocol is not restricted to HaCaT cells but offers great potential also with all non-haematopoietic cells for obtaining accurate results and for studying repair processes in a highly reproducible manner.

Effects of trypsin on X-ray-induced cell killing, chromosome abnormalities and kinetics of DNA repair in mammalian cells

When cells are trypsinized before irradiation a potentiation of X-ray damage may occur. This is known as the 'trypsin effect'. Potentiation of X-ray damage on cell killing was seen in V79 Chinese hamster cells but was marginal in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO K1) cells and not evident in murine Ehrlich ascites tumour (EAT) cells. Trypsinization did however increase the number of X-ray-induced chromosomal abnormalities in all 3 lines. To investigate the possibility that trypsin acts by digestion of proteins in chromatin, further experiments were performed to monitor DNA damage and repair. Induction of DNA breaks by X-rays was unaffected by trypsin but trypsinized EAT (suspension) cells repaired single-strand breaks (ssb) less rapidly than controls indicating an inhibitory effect of trypsin on ssb repair. However double-strand break (dsb) repair was unaffected by trypsin. It was also found that the EDTA solution in which the trypsin was dissolved also contributes to the inhibition of dsb repair. The results show that trypsinization can enhance X-ray-induced cell killing, chromosomal damage and DNA repair, the effect varying between cell lines.