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. 1982 Apr;79(7):2211–2215. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.7.2211

DNA precursor pool: a significant target for N-methyl-N-nitrosourea in C3H/10T1/2 clone 8 cells.

M D Topal, M S Baker
PMCID: PMC346161  PMID: 6954535

Abstract

Synchronized C3H/10T1/2 clone 8 cells were treated in vitro with a nontoxic dose of N-methyl-N-nitrosourea during their S phase. Chromatographic isolation of the deoxyribonucleotide DNA precursor pool and measurement of the precursor content per cell showed that a nucleic acid residue in the precursor pool is 190-13,000 times more susceptible to methylation than a residue in the DNA duplex, depending on the site of methylation. This conclusion comes from measurements indicating that, for example, the N-1 position of adenine in dATP is 6.3 times more methylated than the same position in the DNA, even though the adenine content of the pool is only a fraction (0.0005) of the adenine content of the DNA helix. The comparative susceptibility between pool and DNA was found to vary with the site of methylation in the order the N-1 position of adenine greater than phosphate greater than the N-3 position of adenine greater than the O6 position of guanine greater than the N-7 position of guanine. The significance of these results for chemical mutagenesis and carcinogenesis is discussed.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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