Oxyradicals and DNA damage

A major development of carcinogenesis research in the past 20 years has been the discovery of significant levels of DNA damage arising from endogenous cellular sources. Dramatic improvements in analytical chemistry have provided sensitive and specific methodology for identification and quantitation of DNA adducts. Application of these techniques to the analysis of nuclear DNA from human tissues has debunked the notion that the human genome is pristine in the absence of exposure to environmental carcinogens. Much endogenous DNA damage arises from intermediates of oxygen reduction that either attack the bases or the deoxyribosyl backbone of DNA. Alternatively, oxygen radicals can attack other cellular components such as lipids to generate reactive intermediates that couple to DNA bases. Endogenous DNA lesions are genotoxic and induce mutations that are commonly observed in mutated oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Their mutagenicity is mitigated by repair via base excision and nucleotide excision pathways. The levels of oxidative DNA damage reported in many human tissues or in animal models of carcinogenesis exceed the levels of lesions induced by exposure to exogenous carcinogenic compounds. Thus, it seems likely that oxidative DNA damage is important in the etiology of many human cancers. This review highlights some of the major accomplishments in the study of oxidative DNA damage and its role in carcinogenesis. It also identifies controversies that need to be resolved. Unraveling the contributions to tumorigenesis of DNA damage from endogenous and exogenous sources represents a major challenge for the future.