Repair of Ultraviolet Light Damage in a Variety of Human Fibroblast Cell Strains

Postreplication repair of DNA damage after ultraviolet light irradiation has been examined in a wide variety of human fibroblast strains. The donors were patients with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) of different complementation groups or other hereditary disorders with indications of radiosensitivity, or with light sensitivity or multiple cancers. The defect in postreplication repair previously found in XP variants (excision-proficient XP's) has now been observed in a total of five XP variants and a less severe defect in postreplication repair has been found in excision-defective XP's in Complementation Groups A, B, C, and D. Complementation Group E and all other cell strains studied showed a response that was not significantly different from that of cells from normal donors. Excision repair was also measured in some of these cell strains and was found to be defective only in XP cells. Ultraviolet cell survival characteristics have been obtained for may of the cell strains. The most sensitive were cells from the excision-deficient XP's and from a sun-sensitive child (11961); the latter had no measurable defect in either excision or postreplication repair. The rest of the survival curves lay in a band limited by normal cell strains on the one hand and the slightly more sensitive excision-proficient XP variant XP30RO. Only in the case of the variants XP30RO and XP7TA were we able to demonstrate any influence of caffeine on cell survival.