Effect of Hypertonicity and X Radiation on DNA Synthesis in Normal and Ataxia-Telangiectasia Cells

Normal human cells and cells from patients with ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) were exposed to culture medium made hypertonic by raising the NaCl concentration. The rate of DNA synthesis in both types of cells was depressed as a function of increasing hypertonicity. When cells of both types were exposed to X radiation and incubated in hypertonic medium, DNA synthesis appeared to be more radioresistant than in cells incubated in normal medium. Velocity sedimentation analysis showed that this was due to a hypertonicity-induced inhibition of replicon initiation, which is the same process affected by X radiation, indicating that the two treatments were not additive. After a 5-hr incubation in hypertonic medium, there was a new steady state of replicon initiation and elongation similar to that existing in cells grown in normal medium, except that fewer replicons were participating. At this time DNA synthesis in each type of cell had a characteristic response to radiation, i.e., radiosensitive in normal cells and radioresistant in A-T cells. These results suggest that radioresistant DNA synthesis