In Situ Detection of DNA Damage: Methods and Protocols

Detection and analysis of DNA damage is critically important in the study of the widest variety of biological phenomena, ranging from apoptosis and aging to heart diseases and anticancer drug development. In In Situ Detection of DNA Damage: Methods and Protocols, Vladimir Didenko and a panel of experts describe all the major in situ techniques for studying DNA damage and apoptosis, and show how approaches originally designed to label apoptotic cells can be used for DNA damage analysis (and vice versa). The readily reproducible techniques presented here include all those designed to detect specific single- and double-stranded DNA breaks in tissue sections while using polymerases, ligases, nucleases, and kinases. In-depth protocols for single-cell electrophoresis (comet assay) are presented, as well as those for the detection of indirect markers of DNA damage and modified bases. Technical reviews discuss specificity, sensitivity, advantages, and limitations of the techniques described, and compare them with alternative approaches. State-of-the-art and highly practical, In Situ Detection of DNA Damage: Methods and Protocols presents for the first time a complete set of enzymatic methods for determining DNA breaks, and will greatly facilitate the work of all those studying not only the in situ detection of DNA damage but also the labeling of apoptotic cells.