PHOTOREVERSIBILITY OF UV-INDUCED THYMINE DIMERS AND ABNORMAL MORPHOGENESIS IN SEA-URCHIN EMBRYOS

Abstract— Irradiation of synchronously dividing 16-cell embryos of a sea-urchin ( Hemicentrotus pul-cherrimus ) with 200 J m^?2 of UV light (254 nm) resulted in the complete inhibition of normal pluteus-larva formation when the embryos were cultured in the dark after UV-irradiation. Illumination of the UV-irradiated embryos with visible light (11 W m^?2) for 1 h immediately after the UV-irradiation reversed the abnormal morphogenesis. Measurement of thymine dimers indicates that the degree of UV-induced abnormal morphogenesis is greatly correlated with the amount of thymine dimers in the DNA of the embryos. The degree of the photoreversal decreased with an increase in the interval between UV-irradiation and exposure to visible light. Visible light was ineffective as to the reversibility of both thymine dimers and the abnormal morphogenesis at 60 min after the UV-irradiation, when the UV-irradiated 16-cell embryos entered the next cell cycle.