Short Communication A Preliminary Evaluation of Intra- and Interindividual Variations of hOGG1 Messenger RNA Levels in Peripheral Blood Cells as Determined by a Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Technique

The hOGG1 (8-oxoguanine-DNA glycosylase) gene may contribute to further understanding of the relation between oxidative DNA damage and carcinogenesis. A real-time PCR technique was used to determine mRNA levels in peripheral blood cells to assess the possibility of using hOGG1 mRNA as a biomarker in epidemiological studies. To evaluate the intraand interindividual variation of hOGG1 mRNA levels in peripheral blood cells, we measured them in five healthy nonsmokers three times over a 1-year period. The b-actin mRNA level in each subject was set equal to 100, and the levels of hOGG1 mRNA were found to range from 1.6–17.6. The intraindividual variation range was 1.8–6.4. Although the difference in the mRNA levels between the sampling dates was not significant (P 5 0.73), a significant difference in mRNA levels was found between the subjects (P < 0.01). The subjects seemed to fall into groups according to their individual levels. This preliminary study may provide initial information on the hOGG1 mRNA level of peripheral blood cells as a biomarker in epidemiological studies on oxygen radicals, oxygen radical-related agents, and cancer.