Influence of Caffeine on the Repair of Mitomycin C Induced DNA Damage

Abstract

Caffeine potentiated MMC induced lethality in Salmonella typhimurium strains proficient in excision and recombinant repair but not in excision or recombinant repair deficient strains. Caffeine was found to inhibit the removal of interstrand DNA crosslinks induced by MMC in strains proficient for excision repair but not in a strain deficient in excision repair. Our results indicate that the potentiation by caffeine of MMC induced lethality in S. typhimurium is primarily due to the inhibition by caffeine of excision repair of interstrand DNA crosslinks.

Keywords:

• Caffeine
• MMC
• Mitomycin C
• DNA damage
• DNA repair

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by experiment station project number 345. This report is paper no. 3330 from the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.