Neocarzinostatin-induced mutations at the hprt locus in exponentially growing CHO cells, compared with spontaneous mutations

Spontaneous mutations and neocarzinostatin-induced mutations were investigated in the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (hprt) gene in exponentially growing Chinese hamster ovary cells. Neocarzinostatin (NCS) treatment caused an 4.5-fold increase in mutation frequency. Analysis by multiplex polymerase chain reaction and sequencing of hprt cDNA revealed that spontaneous mutations in this system were characterized by a relatively high rate of large deletions and double-base substitutions, and a low rate of splice mutations compared with data reported in fibroblastic cell lines. NCS hardly affected this spectrum of spontaneous mutations, which indicates the rare incidence of NCS-specific change in the exponential growth phase. This is in contrast to aprt gene mutations reported in plateau phase cells in which base substitutions occur preferentially at sites affected by NCS. These results suggest that differences in the loci assayed or in the processes involved in mammalian mutagenesis in the exponential growth phase and the plateau phase may be the source of the different results.