Primary fibroblasts of Cockayne syndrome patients are defective in cellular repair of 8-hydroxyguanine and 8-hydroxyadenine resulting from oxidative stress.

Cockayne syndrome (CS) is a genetic human disease with clinical symptoms that include neurodegeneration and premature aging. The disease is caused by the disruption of CSA, CSB, or some types of xeroderma pigmentosum genes. It is known that the CSB protein coded by the CS group B gene plays a role in the repair of 8-hydroxyguanine (8-OH-Gua) in transcription-coupled and non-strand discriminating modes. Recently we reported a defect of CSB mutant cells in the repair of another oxidatively modified lesion 8-hydroxyadenine (8-OH-Ade). We show here that primary fibroblasts from CS patients lack the ability to efficiently repair these particular types of oxidatively induced DNA damages. Primary fibroblasts of 11 CS patients and 6 control individuals were exposed to 2 Gy of ionizing radiation to induce oxidative DNA damage and allowed to repair the damage. DNA from cells was analyzed using liquid chromatography/isotope dilution mass spectrometry to measure the biologically important lesions 8-OH-Gua and 8-OH-Ade. After irradiation, no significant change in background levels of 8-OH-Gua and 8-OH-Ade was observed in control human cells, indicating their complete cellular repair. In contrast, cells from CS patients accumulated significant amounts of these lesions, providing evidence for a lack of DNA repair. This was supported by the observation that incision of 8-OH-Gua- or 8-OH-Ade-containing oligodeoxynucleotides by whole cell extracts of fibroblasts from CS patients was deficient compared to control individuals. This study suggests that the cells from CS patients accumulate oxidatively induced specific DNA base lesions, especially after oxidative stress. A deficiency in cellular repair of oxidative DNA damage might contribute to developmental defects in CS patients.