Institute of Experimental Medicine CAS

Published 05. 05. 2021

Head of the Department of Nanotoxicology and Molecular Epidemiology Pavel Rössner, PhD is a co-author of the study "Biomarkers of nucleic acid oxidation - A summary state-of-the-art", published in the prestigious journal Redox Biology (IF 9,986).

Biomarkers of nucleic acid oxidation – A summary state-of-the-art

Many human diseases are linked with a process called oxidative damage that may affect DNA and other macromolecules in the human body. Oxidative damage is initiated by reactive oxygen species that attack DNA and modify it by the formation of oxidized nucleotides, such as 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG). The oxidized compounds affect the functions of DNA and may cause mutations, potentially leading to carcinogenesis. Apart of DNA, oxidative damage to RNA and (2′ -deoxy-) ribonucleotide pools are also being studied. Due to the potential negative health impacts of oxidized molecules, reliable methods of their quantification should be available. 

A chromatographic technique, LCMS/MS, has the ability to measure these molecules, although a significant amount of the target tissue is needed, thus limiting its use in human biomonitoring studies. Another method, the comet assay, requires a small amount of blood for the analysis, making the method a minimally invasive mean of assessing oxidative stress in vivo. However, urine represents the most optimal matrix in which parameters of oxidative damage can be non-invasively measured. For urine, LC-MS/MS is considered the gold standard approach, and although there have been improvements to the ELISA methodology, this is largely limited to 8-oxodG. Emerging DNA adductomics approaches offer the potential to considerably advance our understanding of the mechanistic role of oxidatively damaged nucleic acids in disease.

Link to the published article