Human genome-wide repair map of DNA damage caused by the cigarette smoke carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene [Biochemistry]

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, is the major cause of lung cancer. BaP forms covalent DNA adducts after metabolic activation and induces mutations. We have developed a method for capturing oligonucleotides carrying bulky base adducts, including UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and BaP diol epoxide-deoxyguanosine (BPDE-dG), which are removed from the genome by nucleotide excision repair. The isolated oligonucleotides are ligated to adaptors, and after damage-specific immunoprecipitation, the adaptor-ligated oligonucleotides are converted to dsDNA with an appropriate translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) polymerase, followed by PCR amplification and next-generation sequencing (NGS) to generate genome-wide repair maps. We have termed this method translesion excision repair-sequencing (tXR-seq). In contrast to our previously described XR-seq method, tXR-seq does not depend on repair/removal of the damage in the excised oligonucleotides, and thus it is applicable to essentially all DNA damages processed by nucleotide excision repair. Here we present the excision repair maps for CPDs and BPDE-dG adducts generated by tXR-Seq for the human genome. In addition, we report the sequence specificity of BPDE-dG excision repair using tXR-seq.