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CometChip: a high-throughput 96-well platform for measuring DNA damage in microarrayed human cells.
- Source :
-
Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE [J Vis Exp] 2014 Oct 18 (92), pp. e50607. Date of Electronic Publication: 2014 Oct 18. - Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- DNA damaging agents can promote aging, disease and cancer and they are ubiquitous in the environment and produced within human cells as normal cellular metabolites. Ironically, at high doses DNA damaging agents are also used to treat cancer. The ability to quantify DNA damage responses is thus critical in the public health, pharmaceutical and clinical domains. Here, we describe a novel platform that exploits microfabrication techniques to pattern cells in a fixed microarray. The 'CometChip' is based upon the well-established single cell gel electrophoresis assay (a.k.a. the comet assay), which estimates the level of DNA damage by evaluating the extent of DNA migration through a matrix in an electrical field. The type of damage measured by this assay includes abasic sites, crosslinks, and strand breaks. Instead of being randomly dispersed in agarose in the traditional assay, cells are captured into an agarose microwell array by gravity. The platform also expands from the size of a standard microscope slide to a 96-well format, enabling parallel processing. Here we describe the protocols of using the chip to evaluate DNA damage caused by known genotoxic agents and the cellular repair response followed after exposure. Through the integration of biological and engineering principles, this method potentiates robust and sensitive measurements of DNA damage in human cells and provides the necessary throughput for genotoxicity testing, drug development, epidemiological studies and clinical assays.
- Subjects :
- DNA Repair
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing instrumentation
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing methods
Humans
Microtechnology methods
Comet Assay instrumentation
Comet Assay methods
DNA analysis
DNA Damage
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis instrumentation
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis methods
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1940-087X
- Issue :
- 92
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 25350601
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3791/50607