Endonuclease IV and exonuclease III are involved in the repair and mutagenesis of DNA lesions induced by UVB in Escherichia coli.

Exonuclease III (Exo III) and endonuclease IV (Endo IV) play a critical role in the base excision repair (BER) of Escherichia coli. Both are endowed with AP endonucleolytic activity, cleaving the 5' phosphodiester bond adjacent to spontaneous or induced abasic sites in DNA. Although mutants defective in Exo III (xthA) are usually hypersensitive to oxidative agents such as hydrogen peroxide, near-UV-light and X-rays, mutants defective in Endo IV (nfo) are not as sensitive as the xthA strain. To further investigate the roles of these AP endonucleases in DNA repair, we evaluated the sensitivity and mutagenesis of xthA and nfo strains after UVB and compared with UVC light. Our results revealed that xthA but not nfo strain was hypersensitive to UVB. The use of Fe(+2) ion chelator (dipyridyl), prior to irradiation, completely protected the xthA mutant against UVB lethal lesions, suggesting the generation of toxic oxidative lesions mediated by transition metal reactions. The nfo strain displayed increased UVB-induced mutagenesis, which was significantly suppressed by pre-treatment with dipyridyl. Although xthA strain did not display increased mutagenesis after UVC and UVB treatments, this phenotype was not related to xthA mutation, but rather to an unknown secondary mutation specifying an antimutator phenotype. After UVB irradiation, the base substitution spectra of nfo strain revealed a bias towards AT-->GC transitions and GC-->CG transversions, which were also suppressed by previous treatment with the iron chelator. Overall, on the basis of the differential sensitivities and mutational spectra displayed after UVC and UVB treatments, we propose a role for Endo IV and Exo III to counteract DNA damage induced by the oxidative counterpart of UVB in E.coli.

Uncoupling of the base excision and nucleotide incision repair pathways reveals their respective biological roles.

The multifunctional DNA repair enzymes apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) endonucleases cleave DNA at AP sites and 3'-blocking moieties generated by DNA glycosylases in the base excision repair pathway. Alternatively, in the nucleotide incision repair (NIR) pathway, the same AP endonucleases incise DNA 5' of a number of oxidatively damaged bases. At present, the physiological relevance of latter function remains unclear. Here, we report genetic dissection of AP endonuclease functions in base excision repair and NIR pathways. Three mutants of Escherichia coli endonuclease IV (Nfo), carrying amino acid substitutions H69A, H109A, and G149D have been isolated. All mutants were proficient in the AP endonuclease and 3'-repair diesterase activities but deficient in the NIR. Analysis of metal content reveals that all three mutant proteins have lost one of their intrinsic zinc atoms. Expression of the nfo mutants in a repair-deficient strain of E. coli complemented its hypersensitivity to alkylation but not to oxidative DNA damage. The differential drug sensitivity of the mutants suggests that the NIR pathway removes lethal DNA lesions generated by oxidizing agents. To address the physiological relevance of the NIR pathway in human cells, we used the fluorescence quenching mechanism of molecular beacons. We show that in living cells a major human AP endonuclease, Ape1, incises DNA containing alpha-anomeric 2'-deoxyadenosine, indicating that the intracellular environment supports NIR activity. Our data establish that NIR is a distinct and separable function of AP endonucleases essential for handling lethal oxidative DNA lesions.

Modulation of the 5'-deoxyribose-5-phosphate lyase and DNA synthesis activities of mammalian DNA polymerase beta by apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1.

The Ape1 protein initiates the repair of apurinic/apyrimidinic sites during mammalian base excision repair (BER) of DNA. Ape1 catalyzes hydrolysis of the 5'-phosphodiester bond of abasic DNA to create nicks flanked by 3'-hydroxyl and 5'-deoxyribose 5-phosphate (dRP) termini. DNA polymerase (pol) beta catalyzes both DNA synthesis at the 3'-hydroxyl terminus and excision of the 5'-dRP moiety prior to completion of BER by DNA ligase. During BER, Ape1 recruits pol beta to the incised apurinic/apyrimidinic site and stimulates 5'-dRP excision by pol beta. The activities of these two enzymes are thus coordinated during BER. To examine further the coordination of BER, we investigated the ability of Ape1 to modulate the deoxynucleotidyltransferase and 5'-dRP lyase activities of pol beta. We report here that Ape1 stimulates 5'-dRP excision by a mechanism independent of its apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease activity. We also demonstrate a second mechanism, independent of Ape1, in which conditions that support DNA synthesis by pol beta also enhance 5'-dRP excision. Ape1 modulates the gap-filling activity of pol beta by specifically inhibiting synthesis on an incised abasic substrate but not on single-nucleotide gapped DNA. In contrast to the wild-type Ape1 protein, a catalytically impaired mutant form of Ape1 did not affect DNA synthesis by pol beta. However, this mutant protein retained the ability to stimulate 5'-dRP excision by pol beta. Simultaneous monitoring of 5'-dRP excision and DNA synthesis by pol beta demonstrated that the 5'-dRP lyase activity lags behind the polymerase activity despite the coordination of these two steps by Ape1 during BER.

Endonuclease IV enhances base excision repair of endonuclease III from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum.

Damaged DNA strands are repaired by base excision (BER) in organisms, a process initiated by repair enzymes, which include DNA glycosylases and endonucleases. We expressed and characterized two putative endonuclease genes from Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum, Mt0764 and Mt1010, encoding homologues of endonuclease III (endo III) and endonuclease IV (endo IV) of Escherichia coli. The Mt0764 and Mt1010 proteins showed endo III activity by removing thymine glycol from DNA strand and AP endonuclease activity, respectively. The Mt0764 protein not only cleaved the oligonucleotide duplex, containing a thymine glycol/adenine pair efficiently, but also showed activity on the 8-oxoguanine-containing oligonucleotide duplex. In this study, we report upon the stimulation of endo III activity by endo IV using two recombinant proteins (Mt1010 and Mt0764) from M. thermoautotrophicum. Mt1010 stimulated the DNA glycosylase activity of Mt0764 for DNA substrates containing 8-oxoguanine residues and increasing the formation of the Mt0764 protein-DNA complex. The interaction between Mt1010 and Mt0764 was observed by using an in vitro binding assay. These results suggest that association between endo III and endo IV may occur in vivo, and this contributes to efficient base excision repair for the oxidative damage of DNA.