Objective: To study the role of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-l (PARP-1) in formaldehyde-induced DNA damage response in human bronchial epithelial (HBE) cells and to investigate the mechanism of formaldehyde carcinogenicity.
Methods: The protein levels were measured by Western blot. The interaction between different proteins was determined by co-immunoprecipitation assay. The chemical inhibitor was used to confirm the relationship between PARP-1 and DNA damage repair.
Results: After being exposed to different concentrations of formaldehyde for 4 h, HBE cells showed no significant changes in cell viability. Cell viability was significantly reduced after 24-h exposure to 80 and 160 µmol/L formaldehyde (P < 0.05). The 10 µmol/L formaldehyde resulted in significant increases in the protein levels of PARP-1 and XRCC-1. However, 80 µmol/L formaldehyde led to a significant decrease in the protein level of PARP-1 of 124 KD molecular weight but a significant increase in the protein level of PARP-1 of 89 KD molecular weight; there was no significant change in the protein level of XRCC-1. The co-immunoprecipitation assay showed that 10 µmol/L formaldehyde induced increased binding between PARP-1 and XRCC-1, but 80 µmol/L formaldehyde led to no significant change in binding between PARP-1 and XRCC-1. Here, we confirmed the role of 10 µmol/L formaldehyde in strand breaks by comet assay which showed an increase in the tail DNA content of HBE cells after 4-h formaldehyde exposure. No significant difference was observed in tail DNA content between treated HBE cells and control cells at 2 h after formaldehyde was removed. Moreover, compared with control, inhibition of PARP-1 induced a significant increase in tail DNA content, and a significant difference was observed in tail DNA content between inhibited HBE cells and control cells at 2 h after formaldehyde was removed. Inhibition of PARP-1 significantly reduced DNA repair capacity.
Conclusion: PARP-1 mediated the repair of DNA damage induced by low-concentration formaldehyde through recruiting XRCC-1 protein, and may be involved in the regulation of cell apoptosis induced by high-concentration formaldehyde.