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J.Health Sci., 48(3), 296-301, 2002

Effect of Topoisomerase Inhibitors on the Formation of Replication Protein A-Foci in Nuclei Reconstituted in Xenopus Egg Extract

Takayuki Kobayashi,a Shusuke Tada,*, a Takashi Tsuyama,a Hiromu Murofushi,b Masayuki Seki,a and Takemi Enomotoa

aMolecular Cell Biology Laboratory, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8578, Japan and bDepartment of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Some DNA topoisomerase inhibitors induce cleavage of DNA strands and lead to cell death. Therefore the inhibitors are utilized for chemotherapy against cancer. The treatment, however, can cause severe side effects such as genetic modification of normal cells. Camptothecin (CPT) and etoposide (VP16) belong to this class of anticancer agents that inhibit DNA topoisomerase I and II, respectively. In the present study, we investigated whether treatment with CPT and VP16 induces DNA breaks in nuclei reconstituted in Xenopus egg extract by observing focus formation of replication protein A (RPA), which is thought to accumulate on loci of DNA lesions prior to DNA repair. Treatment with CPT caused formation of discrete RPA foci at a later stage of incubation of demembranated Xenopus sperm nuclei with egg extracts. The RPA foci increased with the amount of CPT. However, at 30 min, before or just starting the initiation of DNA replication, the discrete RPA foci in CPT-containing extract were not obvious, suggesting that DNA replication is necessary for the focus formation induced by CPT. On the other hand, discrete RPA foci were induced by VP16 even at 30 min.