Absence of DNA damage-mediated induction of human methyltransferase specific for precarcinogenic O6-methylguanine.

The ability of cultured normal human fetal liver and kidney epithelial cells to repair the premutagenic and precarcinogenic O6-methylguanine (O6-MeGua) DNA adduct was determined by directly monitoring its loss in cellular DNA and quantitating the number of O6-MeGua-DNA-methyltransferase (O6-MT) molecules per cell. Following treatment of the epithelial cells with the direct acting carcinogen N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU), the loss of the O6-MeGua adduct was biphasic, exhibiting a half-life of 2.0 and 1.5 h in the liver and kidney cells, respectively. The activity of O6-MT in the liver and kidney epithelial cells in culture was 0.19 pmol/mg protein or 18,500 molecules/cell. The activity of O6-MT was maintained throughout the life of the cultures, i.e., 20 subpassages or 50 cumulative population doublings for the liver and kidney. In order to ascertain whether human fetal epithelial cells exhibit an induction of O6-MT, the cell cultures were treated with single and multiple conditioning doses of N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitroso-guanidine (MNNG) or gamma-irradiated and assayed for the amount of O6-MT. A 1 h exposure of cells to 2, 4, and 8 microM MNNG resulted in an 80-100% decrease of the initial O6-MT activity which was restored to the constitutive levels within 48 and 72 h post-treatment. Rat hepatoma cells, used as a positive control, increased their levels of O6-MT to 2.8-fold the constitutive levels following treatment with MNNG. Treatment of the human liver and kidney epithelial cells with chronic low doses of MNNG exhibited O6-MT levels identical to untreated cells. The O6-MT activity in epithelial cells remained unaffected upon pre-irradiation with 1.2 or 2.5 Gy of gamma-irradiation.