An Eco-Friendly Way to Study Radiation-Damaged DNA
Scientists at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have developed an environmentally friendly technique for determining which types of radiation exposure cause the most damage to human DNA – damage that can ultimately lead to cancer.
BNL scientists Betsy Sutherland and Brigitte Paap, who’s now at Arizona State University, devised a method which uses fluorescent tags rather than radioactive tags to analyze how different forms of radiation impact the cell repair process.
Their innovative method, which earned the team the “Best in Class” Pollution Prevention Award from the DOE Office of Science, reduces both the costs and the amount of hazardous materials produced by this type of research.
In addition to reducing waste, the team’s research technique revealed damage from high-energy forms of radiation (like rays found in outer space) caused damage at different locations on the DNA strand than low-energy types of radiations found in x-rays or gamma rays.
Further study suggested that lesions caused by high-energy radiation often had a greater impact on the DNA repair process than those caused by low-energy radiation because of their placement on the DNA strands.
Sutherland and Paap found that low-energy beams created higher numbers of damaged lesions located mainly on upstream portions of the DNA strands, while high-energy rays typically produced fewer lesions located downstream on the double helix.
But they were surprised to find that the body’s repair enzymes worked more effectively on lesions in upstream areas, so lesions in the downstream area of the strand caused more severe damage — even though they were fewer in number — because the damage wasn’t repaired.
Their discoveries are important because DNA damage that’s not repaired can trigger the out-of-control cell growth associated with tumors. As one of the scientists said,
“Understanding the effects on humans of radiation exposure – whether in the natural environment, in outer space, in the workplace, or due to radiation therapy – requires insight into the induction and repair of damage to DNA. It’s very rewarding to come up with a new technique that helps us understand this process while at the same time reducing the waste associated with traditional techniques.”
Betsy M. Sutherland
Brookhaven National Laboratory
If you’d like to learn more, results of Brookhaven’s research have been published in the March 19, 2008, edition of Nucleic Acids Research.
Source: BNL News
Related Links: NASA
Related Podcast: Kyrgyz Town Lives with Radioactive Soviet Legacy from NPR
Technorati Tags: radiobiology; oncology; tumorigenesis; nanobioscience; Upton, NY
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