Cell-cycle kinetics and ultraviolet light survival in UV-1, a Chinese hamster ovary cell mutant defective in post-replication recovery.

UV-I, an ultraviolet-sensitive mutant of CHO-KI, is abnormally slow to recover from the inhibition of DNA synthesis caused by u.v. irradiation. When synchronized UV-I cells are irradiated in G1, their movement into S phase is unaltered, but thymidine incorporation is depressed (compared with that in the parent cell similarly treated). When irradiated in S phase, again incorporation is more depressed, and S phase suffers a greater delay in UV-I than in the parent cell. UV-I and its parent have similar capacities for excision repair of u.v.-induced damage inflicted in G1, and so enter S phase with similar amounts of unrepaired damage. The single-cell survival was measured after irradiation at different points in the cell cycle. The mutant and parent cells have similar values of D0 (mean lethal dose) except in mitosis, when the parent cell shows markedly greater resistance to u.v. irradiation. Dq (quasi-threshold dose) is fairly constant for the parent cell, but in UV-I it falls to a minimum in S phase. The responses of UV-I to u.v. irradiation are generally consistent with its known defect in the process of post-replication recovery, i.e. the ability to join up the abnormally small DNA fragments synthesized on a u.v.-damaged template.