Damage and repair in mammalian cells after exposure to non-ionizing radiations. III. Ultraviolet and visible light irradiation of cells of placental mammals, including humans, and determination of photorepairable damage in vitro.

Cultured cells of placental mammals (including human skin fibroblasts) as well as fresh cornea tissue from oxen have been UV (254 nm)-irradiated and either kept dark or exposed to photoreactivating light (wavelengths greater than 375 nm only) prior to extraction of their DNA. The latter was added to an in vitro photorepair system consisting of UV-irradiated DNA from Haemophilus influenzae and yeast-photoreactiving enzyme, illuminated with broad-spectrum white fluorescent light. The extent of competitive inhibition of the in vitro photorepair of Haemophilus-DNA, resulting from the addition of mammalian DNA, has been taken as a measure of mammalian DNA lesions capable of reacting with photoreactivating enzyme. In most cases the amount of these DNA lesions was reduced if the UV-irradiated mammalian cells had been light-exposed prior to DNA extraction, indicating photoenzymatic repair of up to 90% of the lesions. DNA damage by the photoreactivating light itself was observed at varying degrees in human cells, where this effect presumably masks some of the photorepair.