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Relationship: 24
Title
Alkylation, DNA leads to Inadequate DNA repair
Upstream event
Downstream event
AOPs Referencing Relationship
| AOP Name | Adjacency | Weight of Evidence | Quantitative Understanding | Point of Contact | Author Status | OECD Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alkylation of DNA in male pre-meiotic germ cells leading to heritable mutations | adjacent | High | Moderate | Evgeniia Kazymova (send email) | Open for citation & comment | WPHA/WNT Endorsed |
| Alkylation of DNA leading to cancer 1 | adjacent | High | Moderate | Arthur Author (send email) | Open for adoption | |
| Alkylation of DNA leading to reduced sperm count | adjacent | Brendan Ferreri-Hanberry (send email) | Under development: Not open for comment. Do not cite |
Taxonomic Applicability
Sex Applicability
Life Stage Applicability
Alkylated DNA may be tolerated and/or repaired error-free by a variety of DNA repair pathways. However, at high doses, it is established that the primary DNA repair pathway (O6-Alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase: AGT) responsible for removing alkylated DNA becomes saturated. This may lead to several potential adduct fates: (i) error-free repair of the DNA adduct using alternative DNA repair mechanisms; (ii) no repair (DNA damage is retained); or (iii) instability in the DNA duplex leading to DNA strand breaks and possibly activation of DNA damage signaling. For repair of alkyl adducts it is well established that the O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase pathway becomes saturated at high doses leading to insufficient repair at high doses.
| ID | Experimental Design | Species | Upstream Observation | Downstream Observation | Citation (first author, year) | Notes |
|---|
| Title | First Author | Biological Plausibility |
Dose Concordance |
Temporal Concordance |
Incidence Concordance |
|---|
Biological Plausibility
Dose Concordance Evidence
Temporal Concordance Evidence
Incidence Concordance Evidence
Uncertainties and Inconsistencies
DNA repair is not generally measured directly; thus, insufficient repair is inferred from the retention of adducts or the induction of increases in mutation frequencies post-exposure. In addition, various sizes of alkylation groups (e.g., methyl, ethyl, propyl) can be involved. Although it appears that the larger alkyl adducts tend to be more mutagenic (Beranek, 1990), this is not completely established and there are insufficient data to establish that this is true for germ cells. However, in general, this KER is biologically plausible, broadly accepted for alkyl adducts and has few uncertainties. The direct measurement of insufficient repair can be considered a data gap.
Is it known how much change in the first event is needed to impact the second? Are there known modulators of the response-response relationships? Are there models or extrapolation approaches that help describe those relationships?
There is a clear need to exceed a specific dose to overwhelm the DNA repair process. Kinetics of DNA repair saturation in somatic cells is described in Muller et al. (2009). The shapes of the dose-response curve for mutation induction in male germ cells is sub-linear, supporting that this effect occurs in both somatic cells and spermatogonia. There is a general understanding that methyl adducts are more readily repaired that ethyl adducts, which contributes to quantitative differences between chemicals in their genotoxic potency. There are no models that exist for this to our knowledge.
Response-response Relationship
Time-scale
Known Feedforward/Feedback loops influencing this KER
DNA adducts can occur in any cell type. While there are differences across taxa, all species have some DNA repair systems in place and it is common to extrapolate conclusions across eukaryotic species.