A novel method for ionizing radiation-induced RNA damage detection by poly(A)-tailing RT-PCR

Abstract

Ionizing radiation (IR) causes severe cellular damage both directly and indirectly and disrupts RNA integrity. RNA strand breaks are the most frequent type of damage caused by IR. RNA damage is involved in the development of degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. However, the mechanism of mRNA damage and any resulting pathophysiological outcomes are poorly understood. This is partly because there is a lack of sensitive tools to monitor damage randomly occurring in RNA, especially RNA strand break damage in a given RNA. In this work, a method using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) after poly(A) addition to 3′-end of RNA to determine RNA strand break damage in a specific RNA by poly(A) polymerase has been developed. The levels of damage in specific mRNAs, including ABL1, TP53, GADD45A and ATR from IR-treated HeLa cells were examined. Strand breaks were detected in all mRNAs examined. The study provides a novel and sensitive method based on 3′-end poly(A)-tailing RT-PCR to monitor RNA strand break damage. © 2011 Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.