5. The most common causes of xeroderma pigmentosum are mutations in the NER repair
pathway. This results in an increased susceptibility to UV light-induced DNA damage and XP
patients have a much higher risk of developing skin cancer.
You're interested in studying XP and have developed cell lines from skin cancer patients that can
be studied in tissue culture. You grew a normal wild-type cell line and each of your XP cell lines
under both normal growth conditions and under a UV light treatment. You then provided each
group of cells with radiolabeled nucleotides. After waiting a few hours, you measured the
amount of radiolabeled DNA incorporated into the genomic DNA of each line. Your results are
shown below. The units for amount of radioactivity is counts per minute (CPM).
Cell Line
CPM with no
CPM in following
mutagen (control
UV treatment
conditions)
Wild-type
55,000
430,000
A
50,000
275,000
B
35,000
37,000
C
40,000
300,000
D
20,000
230,000
Which cell line(s) is/are most likely from XP patient(s)? Explain your answer.