Some environmental mutagenic agents cause genomic instability and increase susceptibility of DNA damage. One of them is mitomycin C which is connected to DNA as an alkylating factor and affects susceptible cells to reduction reactions. This drug is used in chemotherapy and treatment of tumors. Study of genomic instability in the presence of different concentrations of MMC can show susceptibilit...

Cycloheximide strongly antagonizes the induction of sister-chromatid exchanges by ethyl methanesulfonate or mitomycin C in human skin fibroblast and xeroderma pigmentosum cells (group A). Analogous behavior has been observed in several other species including Chinese hamster and plant cells. This report documents an exception to that pattern: cycloheximide fails to antagonize UV-induced sister ...

Sister chromatid cohesion and separation are fundamental for accurate genome inheritance over cell generations. Work over recent years has established the existence of a chromosomal protein complex, cohesin, that connects sister chromatids from the time they are generated in S phase onwards, and which is destroyed at the onset of anaphase through cleavage by the protease separase. Over the last...

Styrene induces sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) in human whole-blood lymphocyte cultures without exogenous metabolizing systems, which indicates that styrene is metabolically activated in this in vitro system. Whole-blood lymphocyte cultures from 11 male donors showed a clear increase in SCEs after a 48-hr treatment with styrene (2 mM) or with the reactive metabolite styrene 7,8-oxide (0.15 m...

Chromosome ends are known hotspots of meiotic recombination and double-strand breaks. We monitored mitotic sister chromatid exchange (SCE) in telomeres and subtelomeres and found that 17% of all SCE occurs in the terminal 0.1% of the chromosome. Telomeres and subtelomeres are significantly enriched for SCEs, exhibiting rates of SCE per basepair that are at least 1,600 and 160 times greater, res...

During meiosis, sister chromatid cohesion is required for normal levels of homologous recombination, although how cohesion regulates exchange is not understood. Null mutations in orientation disruptor (ord) ablate arm and centromeric cohesion during Drosophila meiosis and severely reduce homologous crossovers in mutant oocytes. We show that ORD protein localizes along oocyte chromosomes during ...

Sister chromatid cohesion is mediated by DNA catenation and proteinaceous cohesin complexes. The recent visualization of PICH (Plk1-interacting checkpoint helicase)-coated DNA threads in anaphase cells raises new questions as to the role of DNA catenation and its regulation in time and space. In the present study we show that persistent DNA catenation induced by inhibition of Topoisomerase-IIal...

The addition of BUDR (5-bromodeoxiuridine), a thymine analogue, to cell cultures causes various chromosomic changes, depending on the length of treatment and when the BUDR is incorporated into the DNA molecule. A short BUDR treatment of cells in the second half of the S-phase causes symmetrical chromosome segmentation (Zacharov et al. 1971), while prolonged contact over two division cycles indu...

The mechanisms of asymmetric organ development have been under intensive investigation for years, yet the proposed mechanisms remain controversial (1-3). The female Bruchus quadrimaculatus beetle insect develops two black-colored spots bilaterally located on each upper elytra wing by an unknown mechanism. Fifty percent of the P (for piebald, two colors) gene homozygous mutant insects, described...

The spontaneous sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) and SCEs induced by 50 microM methyl methanesulfonate, 1 microM 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide, and 5 microM 3-amino-1-methyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole were examined in phytohemagglutinin-activated peripheral lymphocytes from 53 healthy adult donors. The means of the mean spontaneous SCEs and SCEs induced by methyl methanesulfonate, 4-nitroquinoline 1-ox...