Protective effect of deoxyribonucleosides on UV-irradiated human peripheral blood T-lymphocytes: possibilities for the selective killing of either cycling or non-cycling cells

Non-cycling human T-lymphocytes from normal subjects show a 10-fold greater sensitivity than fibroblasts to UV-B (280–315 nm) irradiation from a Westinghouse FS20 lamp, but only a 2.7-fold greater sensivitiy to UV-C (254 nm) irradiation. Hypersensitivity is associated with a deficiency in the rejoining of excision breaks. Non-cycling T-lymphocytes have extremely low deoxyribonucleotide pools. Addition to the medium of the four deoxyribonucleosides, each at a concentration of 10−5 M, substantially increases survival and reduces the persistence of excision-related strand breaks following UV-B or UV-C irradiation (Yew and Johnson (1979) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 562, 240–241; Green et al. (1994) Mutation Res., 315, 25–32). UV-resistance of T-lymphocytes is also increased by stimulating the cells into cycle. The addition of deoxyribonucleosides does not further enhance survival of cycling cells and they do not reach the level of resistance achieved by non-cycling cells in the presence of deoxyribonucleosides. We suggest that two opposing effects are in operation. Cells out of cycle can show increased resistance to DNA damage in the absence of division but they also have reduced deoxyribonucleotide pools, which may limit DNA repair. With UV-B irradiation, the exceptionally low dNTP pools in non-cycling T-lymphocytes cause this second effect to predominate. In contrast, with ionising radiation, which forms highly cytotoxic double-strand breaks, non-cycling human T-lymphocytes are slightly more resistant than fibroblasts. Non-cycling cells such as T-lymphocytes should be especially sensitive to agents which produce a high proportion of readily excisable damage, but should show normal resistance to agents which produce highly toxic lesions. It may be possible by choice of DNA damaging agent and manipulation of cellular deoxyribonucleotide pools, to choose regimes which will selectively kill either cycling or non-cycling cells and to improve the efficacy of standard therapeutic procedures. Conditions favouring selective killing of non-dividing T-lymphocytes but sparing stem cells may be of value in bone marrow transplantation. Conditions favouring selective killing of dividing cancer cells but sparing non-dividing normal tissue may be of value in cancer therapy.