DNA double strand break repair inhibition as a cause of heat radiosensitization: Re-evaluation considering backup pathways of NHEJ

Heat shock is one of the most effective radiosensitizers known. As a result, combination of heat with ionizing radiation (IR) is considered a promising strategy in the management of human cancer. The mechanism of heat radiosensitization has been the subject of extensive work but a unifying mechanistic model is presently lacking. To understand the cause of excessive death in irradiated cells after heat exposure, it is necessary to characterize the lesion(s) underlying the effect and to determine which of the pathways processing this lesion are affected by heat. Since DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are the main cause for IR-induced cell death, inhibition of DSB processing has long been considered a major candidate for heat radiosensitization. However, effective radiosensitization of mutants with defects in homologous recombination repair (HRR), or in DNA-PK dependent non-homologous end joining (D-NHEJ), the two primary pathways of DSB repair, has led to the formulation of models excluding DSBs as a cause for this phenomenon and attributing heat radiosensitization to inhibition of base damage processing. Since direct evidence for a major role of base damage in heat radiosensitization, or in IR-induced killing for that matter, is scarce and new insights in DSB repair allow alternative interpretations of existing data with repair mutants, we attempt here a re-evaluation of the role of DSBs and their repair in heat radiosensitization. First, we reanalyse data obtained with various DSB repair mutants on first principles and in the light of the recent recognition that alternative pathways of NHEJ, operating as backup (B-NHEJ), substantially contribute to DSB repair and thus probably also to heat radiosensitization. Second, we review aspects of combined action of heat and radiation, such as modulation in the cell-cycle-dependent variation in radiosensitivity to killing, as well as heat radiosensitization as a function of LET, and examine whether the observed effects are compatible with DSB repair inhibition. We conclude with a model reclaiming a central role for DSBs in heat radiosensitization.