Targets for repair: detecting and quantifying DNA damage with fluorescence-based methodologies

Detection and characterization of DNA damage is essential for evaluating genotoxicity, monitoring DNA repair, developing biomarkers for exposures, and evaluating the efficacy of chemotherapies. These diverse applications for DNA damage measurements have spurred the continual development and refinement of methodologies for detecting, characterizing, and quantifying DNA damage from isolated DNA and in cells and tissues. Current damage detection methods cover a wide range of techniques from radiolabeling to mass spectrometry, and use of these techniques varies widely based on expense, expertise, and knowledge of adduct formation. More generalizable, easy-to-use methods for detecting and quantifying DNA damage are needed, and there has been an emergence of fluorescence-based methodologies to address this need. Developments in these fluorescence-based strategies are reviewed here.