Structural defects in rat liver deoxyribonucleic acid. Endogenous single-strained regions in comparison with damage induced in vivo by a carcinogen.

Rat liver DNA may be separated into two fractions by stepwise elution from benzoylated-DEAE-cellulose with NaCl and caffeine solutions respectively. Other studies using bacterical and yeast DNA suggested that the first fraction contains native DNA, whereas the second may exhibit some degree of single-stranded character. In the present experiments, chromatography of DNA was monitored by labelling in vivo with [methyl-3H]thymidine in rats previously subjected to partial hepatectomy. In animals killed up to 1 h after thymidine injection, radioactivity eluted in the second fraction was inversely related to the incorporation time, being greatest when animals were killed 10 min after radioisotope injection. However, for most experiments, animals were allowed to survive 2-4 weeks after surgery before use, analysis being made on non-dividing DNA. Under these conditions, the proportion of caffeine-eluted DNA was decreased by subjecting the preparation to shear, before chromatography. A procedure that resulted in 12% of the recovered radioactivity being eluted with caffeine was adopted for experiments involving comparisons of the two DNA fractions. Under these conditions, cross-contamination could be detected by rechromatography, but this did not preclude distinction being made between the two fractions in terms of DNA structure. NaCl-eluted DNA did not bind to nitrocellulose filters. Caffeine-eluted DNA was retained by the filters and released by washing with 3mM-Tris/HCl,pH9.4. The fractions did not differ in terms of isopycnic centrifugation in CsCl. The NaCl-eluted fraction migrated as a single band in polyacrylamide gels, and this pattern was not modified by prior digestion with Neurospora crassa endonuclease. In contrast, caffeine-eluted DNA contained a minor component having a wide molecular-weight distribution and was subject to limited digestion by the endonuclease. The kinetics of denaturation of NaCi-eluted DNA in the presence of formaldehyde, in common with unfractionated DNA, were consistent with double-stranded structure. The same analysis of caffeine-eluted DNA revealed structural abnormality equivalent to two defects per 10000 base-pairs. The data are consistent with the minor fraction of rat liver DNA, separated by using benzoylated-DEAE-cellulose, containing regions of local denaturation. We previously showed that administration of the hepatocarcinogen dimethylnitrosamine is associated with an increase in the proportion of caffeine-eluted DNA. In terms of most analysis, differences between DNA fraction from nitrosamine-treated rats were similar to differences exhibited by preparations from control animals. However, structural analysis using denaturation kinetics indicated defects in both the NaCl- and caffeine-eluted DNA isolated from nitrosamine-treated rats. The two fractions differed from each other in that caffeine-eluted DNA exhibited a degree of structural damage far greater than that detected in any preparation from control animals...