High LET (linear energy transfer) irradiation of living cells using heavy ions generates a high amount of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) in close vicinity to each other along the ion track. Various repair proteins cluster to the damage sites, such as gH2AX and 53BP1, forming so-called repair foci of a gross size of about 1 µm. Due to the fact that one focus covers more than one DSB, a fine-structure within the focus can be expected. First indications for such a fine-structure were found in wide field images of cells taken one hour after irradiation with 55MeV carbon ions in a 5x5 µm matrix performed at the ion microprobe SNAKE. While a typical focus with the diameter of about 1 µm can be easily resolved using a conventional fluorescence microscope, its substructures cannot be resolved due to the diffraction limit of about 250 nm in conventional fluorescence microscopy. Therefore, for analyzing foci fine-structures systematically, super-resolution microscopy techniques like structured illumination microscopy (SIM), stimulation emission depletion microscopy (STED) or localization microscopy (SPDM) which provide a lateral resolution of about 130 nm (SIM) to 50 nm (SPDM) fwhm are utilized. Since with these techniques the lateral resolution is even better than the z-resolution we used an irradiation configuration, where the cells are irradiated at a small angle to the image plane. Thus, the complete ion track appears as a line within one layer of a 3D microscope image. Due to these improvements the super resolution images clearly indicate a fine-structure when e. g. 53BP1 is stained with two colors. For quantification of the results the Pearson correlation coefficient is calculated for a pixel wise shift in x-direction as well as in y-direction of one color channel with respect to the other (Van Steensel approach). This proves the existence of a fine-structure of a scale of about 200-230 nm, which becomes obvious by an extra correlation peak with a fwhm of this size. Using the same Van Steensel approach with images where one color marks 53BP1 and the other gH2AX, it can be shown that there is no total correlation of the fine-structure between 53BP1 and gH2AX on the small scale. Using the product of the difference of the mean (PDM) for 2D profiles the images where one protein is labeled with two colors show large regions with total correlation of the to color channels and only small regions at the rim of the focus with no total correlation. In addition, in the PDM approach two different damage markers each labeled in one color show colocalisation in small regions inside the focus but anticorrelation in the outer regions of the focus. These analysis lead to different results: first of all a single repair marker seems to cluster systematically to the damage site and not in a random way. Secondly 53BP1 and gH2AX cluster in a different way and therefore no full colocalisation can be reached. With this experimental and analytical methods it is possible to determine the way of clustering to DSB of one single DNA damage marker to clarify the structure of a DSB and the structure of the chromatin architecture as well as the comparison of two damage markers to get deeper understanding to the interaction of repair markers and repair proteins and at the end decode the way of DNA repair.    «

High LET (linear energy transfer) irradiation of living cells using heavy ions generates a high amount of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) in close vicinity to each other along the ion track. Various repair proteins cluster to the damage sites, such as gH2AX and 53BP1, forming so-called repair foci of a gross size of about 1 µm. Due to the fact that one focus covers more than one DSB, a fine-structure within the focus can be expected. First indications for such a fine-structure were found in wide...    »