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Measurement of oxidative DNA damage by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry: ethanethiol prevents artifactual generation of oxidized DNA bases.

ABSTRACT: Analysis of oxidative damage to DNA bases by GC-MS enables identification of a range of base oxidation products, but requires a derivatization procedure. However, derivatization at high temperature in the presence of air can cause 'artifactual' oxidation of some undamaged bases, leading to an overestimation of their oxidation products, including 8-hydroxyguanine. Therefore derivatization conditions that could minimize this problem were investigated. Decreasing derivatization temperature to 23 degrees C lowered levels of 8-hydroxyguanine, 8-hydroxyadenine, 5-hydroxycytosine and 5-(hydroxymethyl)uracil measured by GC-MS in hydrolysed calf thymus DNA. Addition of the reducing agent ethanethiol (5%, v/v) to DNA samples during trimethylsilylation at 90 degrees C also decreased levels of these four oxidized DNA bases as well as 5-hydroxyuracil. Removal of guanine from hydrolysed DNA samples by treatment with guanase, prior to derivatization, resulted in 8-hydroxyguanine levels (54-59 pmol/mg of DNA) that were significantly lower than samples not pretreated with guanase, independent of the derivatization conditions used. Only hydrolysed DNA samples that were derivatized at 23 degrees C in the presence of ethanethiol produced 8-hydroxyguanine levels (56+/-8 pmol/mg of DNA) that were as low as those of guanase-pretreated samples. Levels of other oxidized bases were similar to samples derivatized at 23 degrees C without ethanethiol, except for 5-hydroxycytosine and 5-hydroxyuracil, which were further decreased by ethanethiol. Levels of 8-hydroxyguanine, 8-hydroxyadenine and 5-hydroxycytosine measured in hydrolysed calf thymus DNA by the improved procedures described here were comparable with those reported previously by HPLC with electrochemical detection and by GC-MS with prepurification to remove undamaged base. We conclude that artifactual oxidation of DNA bases during derivatization can be prevented by decreasing the temperature to 23 degrees C, removing air from the derivatization reaction and adding ethanethiol.

SUBMITTER: Jenner A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1219362 | biostudies-other | 1998 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:Microbial communities exchange molecules with their environment, which plays a major role in regulating global biogeochemical cycles and climate. While extracellular metabolites are commonly measured in terrestrial and limnic ecosystems, the presence of salt in marine habitats limits the nontargeted analyses of the ocean exometabolome using mass spectrometry (MS). Current methods require salt removal prior to sample measurements, which can alter the molecular composition of the metabolome and limit the types of compounds detected by MS. To overcome these limitations, we developed a gas chromatography MS (GC-MS) method that avoids sample altering during salt removal and that detects metabolites down to nanomolar concentrations from less than 1 ml of seawater. We applied our method (SeaMet) to explore marine metabolomes in vitro and in vivo First, we measured the production and consumption of metabolites during the culture of a heterotrophic bacterium, Marinobacter adhaerens Our approach revealed successional uptake of amino acids, while sugars were not consumed. These results show that exocellular metabolomics provides insights into nutrient uptake and energy conservation in marine microorganisms. We also applied SeaMet to explore the in situ metabolome of coral reef and mangrove sediment porewaters. Despite the fact that these ecosystems occur in nutrient-poor waters, we uncovered high concentrations of sugars and fatty acids, compounds predicted to play a key role for the abundant and diverse microbial communities in coral reef and mangrove sediments. Our data demonstrate that SeaMet advances marine metabolomics by enabling a nontargeted and quantitative analysis of marine metabolites, thus providing new insights into nutrient cycles in the oceans.IMPORTANCE Nontargeted approaches using metabolomics to analyze metabolites that occur in the oceans is less developed than those for terrestrial and limnic ecosystems. One of the challenges in marine metabolomics is that salt limits metabolite analysis in seawater to methods requiring salt removal. Building on previous sample preparation methods for metabolomics, we developed SeaMet, which overcomes the limitations of salt on metabolite detection. Considering that the oceans contain the largest dissolved organic matter pool on Earth, describing the marine metabolome using nontargeted approaches is critical for understanding the drivers behind element cycles, biotic interactions, ecosystem function, and atmospheric CO2 storage. Our method complements both targeted marine metabolomic investigations as well as other "omics" (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) approaches by providing an avenue for studying the chemical interaction between marine microbes and their habitats.

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Measurement of oxidative DNA damage by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry: ethanethiol prevents artifactual generation of oxidized DNA bases.

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