Trichothiodystrophy (TTD) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by brittle hair with reduced sulfur content, mental and physical retardation, a peculiar face and ichthyosis. Photosensitivity has been reported in approximately 20% of the cases in the literature. DNA repair investigations demonstrated that clinical photosensitivity is usually associated with an enhancement of the cellular UV-sensitivity and that the repair defect is in the same gene as in patients from group D of xeroderma pigmentosum (XP). In this paper we describe the characterization of 13 further TTD patients; a defect in the nucleotide-excision repair was observed in fibroblast strains from 10 patients, confirming that TTD is frequently associated with DNA repair defects. Genetic analysis based on complementation studies demonstrated the presence of the XP-D defect in seven repair-defective TTD cases, indicating definitively that the concurrence of TTD with XP-D is not a sporadic or casual event. However, three further cell strains (TTD4VI and TTD6VI from two French siblings and TTD1BR from an English patient) showed restoration of normal UV-induced DNA repair synthesis after fusion with XP or TTD cells belonging to XP group D. These observations, which give the first indication that TTD is associated with repair defects behaving differently in the functional test of complementation, suggest some kind of causal connection between defective excision-repair factors and clinical features diagnostic for TTD. A peculiar aspect of TTD in which repair deficiencies are not related to an increased susceptibility to cancer is confirmed also in all the repair-defective TTD patients investigated in this paper.

We studied the response to UV irradiation in cells from four patients, from three apparently unrelated families, affected by trichothiodystrophy (TTD). They showed all the symptoms of this rare autosomal recessive disorder (brittle hair with reduced sulfur content, mental and physical retardation, ichthyosis, peculiar face) together with photosensitivity. We found a decreased rate of duplicative DNA synthesis in stimulated lymphocytes, reduced survival in fibroblasts, and very low levels of unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) in Go lymphocytes and fibroblasts after UV irradiation. Complementation studies showed that normal values of UDS are restored in heterokaryons obtained by fusion of TTD cells with normal and xeroderma pigmentosum (XP)-complementation group A-cells. In contrast the defect is not complemented by fusion with XP-complementation group D-fibroblasts.

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The inhibitors of the nuclear enzyme ADP-ribosyl transferase (ADPRT) had been shown to block the stimulation of quiescent lymphocytes with mitogens suggesting the involvement of the enzyme in the control of gene expression and cell differentiation. By means of the activity-gel assay we have analysed the intensity and the molecular mass of the catalytic bands of the enzyme at early and late times after stimulation of human lymphocytes by phytohemagglutinin. We observed that the increase in the activity of ADPRT is concurrent with the onset of DNA synthesis and is maintained for up to 10 days after lymphocyte stimulation, when DNA replication is over but the capacity to perform repair synthesis is still elevated. The analysis of ADPRT in stimulated lymphocytes by Western blots indicated that the increase in enzyme activity is due to the de novo synthesis of enzyme protein. The response of ADPRT to the treatment of human lymphocytes with DNA-damaging agents was studied at various dose-ranges, using the activity-gel technique. The results obtained indicate that dimethyl sulfate is 10 times as active as methyl methane sulfonate in stimulating ADPRT activity and that, at very high doses, the activity band of the enzyme tends to disappear. Very similar observations were obtained when Chinese hamster ovary cells were treated with the same agents, although the concentrations of the mutagens eliciting maximal ADPRT activation were 10 times higher than in human lymphocytes. When analysed by Western blots, no significant difference of the protein band of the enzyme was observed in comparing control and treated cells. This suggests that the activity-gel system can detect two different phenomena: the increase in enzyme protein, as in the case of stimulated lymphocytes, and the enzyme-activating effect of DNA-damaging agents, which occurs without changing the number of enzyme molecules. Of particular interest is the observation that mitomycin C is capable of activating ADPRT in human lymphocytes, thus suggesting that cross-linking agents are involved in promoting ADP-ribosylation reactions. We have also analysed the variations of the enzyme throughout the cell cycle in HeLa cells synchronized in S phase or in mitosis. No significant changes in the levels of the enzyme activity were revealed by the activity-gel assay during the progression of the cycle, although an overall increase of active polypeptides of larger size in concomitance with the S period was observed.