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Comparison of effects of direct‐acting DNA methylating and ethylating agents on inducible gene expression in vivo
Author(s) -
McCaffrey Jennifer,
Hamilton Joshua W.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
environmental and molecular mutagenesis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1098-2280
pISSN - 0893-6692
DOI - 10.1002/em.2850230303
Subject(s) - methyl methanesulfonate , carcinogen , in vivo , gene expression , ethyl methanesulfonate , biology , ethylnitrosourea , gene , regulation of gene expression , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , genetics , dna repair , mutation , mutant
Abstract Our laboratory is interested in whether chemical carcinogen‐induced DNA damage is non‐ran‐domly distributed in the genome, i.e., “targeted,” at the level of individual genes. As one means of investigating this, we have examined whether carcinogen treatment differentially alters the expression of specific genes in vivo. In this study, we have compared the effects of four direct‐acting simple alkylating agents (methyl methanesulfonate, ethyl methanesulfonate, methylnitrosourea, and ethylnitrosourea) on the steady‐state mRNA expression of a model in‐ducible gene, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxyki‐nase (PEPCK), using the chick embryo as a simple in vivo test system. We observed no effect of any of these four carcinogens on the steady‐state mRNA expression of the constitutively expressed β‐actin, transferrin, or albumin genes in chick embryo liver following a single dose of carcinogen. In contrast, these same treatments significantly altered both the basal and inducible expression of the glucocorticoid‐inducible PEPCK gene. These results support the hypothesis that inducible gene expression is a target for the effects of chemical carcinogens in vivo. In addition, the direction, magnitude, and time course of these effects were agent‐specific. Qualitative and quantitative differences in effects between the methylating and ethylating agents and between the methanesulfonates and nitrosoureas were correlated with differences in their specific patterns of DNA adduct formation, suggesting that different DNA lesions have different effects on inducible gene expression.