Antifolate-induced misincorporation of deoxyuridine monophosphate into DNA by cells from patients with the fragile X syndrome

The fragile site at Xq27 is expressed in vitro under conditions that lead to decreased intracellular thymidine triphosphate concentration, a condition which has also been shown to promote the misincorporation into DNA of deoxyuridine monophosphate (dUMP) in place of thymidine. We tested for increased whole-cell misincorporation of dUMP as a possible molecular mechanism for the expression of the fragile X abnormality. Neither deoxyuridine triphosphatase nor uracil-DNA-glycosylase, the two enzymes that normally prevent the accumulation of dUMP in DNA, was deficient in fragile X syndrome cells. Misincorporation of dUMP occurred in comparably low levels in both normal and fragile X syndrome lymphoblasts. Although these results provide strong evidence against generalized misincorporation of dUMP in fragile X syndrome cells, a substantial real difference present at Xq27 might not be detected in these studies of whole cells containing the diploid chromosome complement.