In order to study the repair capacity of fertilized hamster eggs for the lesions present or induced in human sperm, we have examined the potentiating effect of caffeine, a DNA repair inhibitor, on the frequency and types of sperm chromosome aberrations. Sperm samples were donated by an individual treated with chemotherapy for a testicular cancer 3 years previously. Exposure of spermatozoa and inseminated oocytes to caffeine led to an increase of sperm chromosome aberrations, indicating that the damage to human sperm can be repaired in untreated hamster egg cytoplasm. The potentiating effect of caffeine was mainly reflected in an increase of unrejoined aberrations, indicating that the formation of chromosomal rearrangements is also inhibited. Since both chromatid-type and chromosome-type aberrations increase after treatment with caffeine, damage to human sperm can probably be repaired inside the hamster egg cytoplasm by pre and post-replication repair mechanisms.

Repair of human sperm chromosome aberrations in the hamster egg.

This paper explores how quantitative risk assessment methods might be extended to analysis of risks to the human germ line. High inhalation exposures to ethylene oxide are reported to cause heritable translocations in male mice with a steep and nonlinear dose-response curve. We explore quantitative estimation of risk to humans from low exposures based on these animal data, addressing questions of tissue dosimetry for this alkylating agent, expected equivalency of doses across species, germ-cell sensitivity, and extrapolation of dose-response relationship to low exposure levels. Various dose-response models are discussed in terms of their applicability to genetic end points and their ability to reflect the underlying basis of induced heritable translocations.

Quantitative estimation of the genetic risk associated with the induction of heritable translocations at low-dose exposure: ethylene oxide as an example.

Male mice were subjected to repeated inhalation exposures to different concentrations (165, 204, 250, or 300 ppm) of ethylene oxide (EtO) during an 8.5-week period. Transmitted clastogenic effects of these exposures were measured in terms of induction of dominant lethal mutations and heritable translocations. The concentration-response curves for both endpoints are not linear but are markedly concave upward. Significant increases in dominant lethals were detected at all concentrations, except the lowest one. In comparison, the incidences of heritable translocations were significantly increased at all concentrations.

Concentration-response curves for ethylene-oxide-induced heritable translocations and dominant lethal mutations.

Sensitivity of various germ-cell stages to environmental mutagens.

A significant increase in the incidence of structural chromosome anomalies has been observed in the sperm of patients treated with radio and/or chemotherapy for different types of cancer when analyzed by the interspecific fertilization of hamster eggs. The analysis of these aberrations shows that while in controls only 9.4% of structural abnormalities are of the stable type, in treated patients this figure increases to 39.3%, thus indicating that the anomalies have not been produced during the fertilization of the hamster egg. However, it is possible that part, or even most, of the breaks appear as a result of a reduced repair capacity of sperm chromosomes in the cytoplasm of the hamster egg.

Carol S. Hellwig

Papers

Evidence that chromosome rearrangements occur after fertilization following postmeiotic treatment of male-mice germ cells with EMS