The Bright and the Dark Sides of DNA Repair in Stem Cells

Table 1

DNA repair capacity in embryonic, adult and mesenchymal stem versus differentiated cells.

Stem cell system	DNA repair mechanism/enzyme	Higher	Similar	Lower	Remarks	Ref.
ESC
Human ESC	Expression of double strand break repair genes	√			Compared to human embryoid bodies and fibroblasts	[5]
Human ESC	Expression of BER genes	√			Compared to human embryoid bodies and fibroblasts	[5]
Human ESC	Expression of NER genes	√			Compared to human embryoid bodies and fibroblasts	[5]
Human ESC	Expression of antioxidant and DNA repair genes	√			Compared to differentiated cells	[10]
Murine ESC	Expression of strand break repair genes	√			Compared to differentiated cells	[1, 2]
Murine ESC	Expression of antioxidant and strand break repair genes	√			Compared to differentiated cells	[13]
Murine ESC	NER			√	Strong apoptosis	[16]
Murine ESC	NER			√	Strong apoptosisS-phase delay	[17]
Murine ESC	MGMTMMR	√			Compared to differentiated cells Highly sensitive to methylation damageStrong apoptosis	[14]
ASC
Human CD34+ 38− hematopoietic stem cells	Removal of ENU or melphalan-induced DNA adducts	√			Compared to progenitor or mature cellsResistant to DNA-reactive drugs	[20]
Human CD34+ 38− hematopoietic stem cells	Resealing of strand breaks and repair gaps	√			Compared to progenitor or mature cellsResistant to DNA-reactive drugs	[20]
Human CD 34+ hematopoietic stem cells	KU70 expression	√			Negatively correlated with donor age	[21]
Human cells of the monocytic lineage	NER	√			Compared to macrophages	[22]
Human neural precursors	NER	√			Compared to neurons	[23, 24]
Human cycling CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells	MGMTMMR		√		Compared to mature CD34− cellsNormally sensitive to methylation damage	[25]
Murine neural precursors				√	Sensitive to IR	[26]
Stem cells in the subventricular zone and oligodendrocyte precursor cells in rodent and human brain				√	Sensitive to IR	[27]
Murine neural stem/progenitor cells	BER (OGG1)	√			Compared to differentiated cells	[28]
Murine neural stem/progenitor cells	BER (NEIL3)	√			Compared to differentiated cells	[29, 30]
Murine fetal hematopoietic cells	BER (DNA pol β)			√	Compared to adult hematopoietic cellsLow point mutation frequency	[31]
Murine myoblasts	BER (DNA ligase I and XRCC1)	√			Compared to myotubes	[32]
Murine keratinocytes	NER		√			[33]
MSC
Human fetal MSC	DNA repair gene expression	√			Compared to adult MSC	[34]
Human MSC from bone marrow transplantation patients	DSB repair	√			Compared to lung or breast cancer cellsResistant to IR	[35]
Human MSC obtained from bone marrow transplantation patients	ROS-scavenging capacity	√			Resistant to IR	[35]
Human MSC	Single and double-strand break repair		√		Resistant to IRHigh telomerase activity	[36]
Rat MSC	DNA repair gene expression	√			Compared to senescent MSC	[9]