Kinetic Analysis of the Effect of N-Terminal Acetylation on Thymine DNA Glycosylase.

Thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG) is tasked with initiating DNA base excision repair by recognizing and removing T, U, the chemotherapeutic 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), and many other oxidized and halogenated pyrimidine bases. TDG contains a long, unstructured N-terminus that contains four known sites of acetylation: lysine (K) residues 59, 83, 84, and 87. Here, K to glutamine (Q) mutants are used as acetyl-lysine (AcK) analogues to probe the effect of N-terminal acetylation on the kinetics of TDG. We find that mimicking acetylation affects neither the maximal single-turnover rate kmax nor the turnover rate kTO, indicating that the steps after initial binding, through chemistry and product release, are not affected. Under subsaturating conditions, however, acetylation changes the processing of U substrates. Subtle differences among AcK analogues are revealed with 5-FU in single-stranded DNA. We propose that the subtleties observed among the AcK analogues may be amplified on the genomic scale, leading to regulation of TDG activity. N-terminal acetylation, though, may also play a structural, rather than kinetic role in vivo.

Nucleosomes and the three glycosylases: High, medium, and low levels of excision by the uracil DNA glycosylase superfamily.

Human cells express the UDG superfamily of glycosylases, which excise uracil (U) from the genome. The three members of this structural superfamily are uracil DNA glycosylase (UNG/UDG), single-strand selective monofunctional uracil DNA glycosylase (SMUG1), and thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG). We previously reported that UDG is efficient at removing U from DNA packaged into nucleosome core particles (NCP) and is minimally affected by the histone proteins when acting on an outward-facing U in the dyad region. In an effort to determine whether this high activity is a general property of the UDG superfamily of glycosylases, we compare the activity of UDG, SMUG1, and TDG on a U:G wobble base pair using NCP assembled from Xenopus laevis histones and the Widom 601 positioning sequence. We found that while UDG is highly active, SMUG1 is severely inhibited on NCP and this inhibition is independent of sequence context. Here we also provide the first report of TDG activity on an NCP, and found that TDG has an intermediate level of activity in excision of U and is severely inhibited in its excision of T. These results are discussed in the context of cellular roles for each of these enzymes.

Human Oxoguanine Glycosylase 1 Removes Solution Accessible 8-Oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine Lesions from Globally Substituted Nucleosomes Except in the Dyad Region.

Persistent DNA damage is responsible for mutagenesis, aging, and disease. Repair of the prototypic oxidatively damaged guanine lesion 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoG) is initiated by oxoguanine glycosylase (hOGG1 in humans). In this work, we examine hOGG1 activity on DNA packaged as it is in chromatin, in a nucleosome core particle (NCP). We use synthetic methods to generate a population of NCPs with G to 8-oxoG substitutions and evaluate the global profile of hOGG1 repair in packaged DNA. For several turns of the helix, we observe that solution accessible 8-oxoGs are sites of activity for hOGG1. At the dyad axis, however, hOGG1 activity is suppressed, even at lesions predicted to be solution accessible by hydroxyl radical footprinting (HRF). We predict this diminished activity is due to the properties of the DNA unique to the dyad axis and/or the local histone environment. In contrast to the dyad axis, the DNA ends reveal hOGG1 activity at sites predicted by HRF to be both solution accessible and inaccessible. We attribute the lack of correlation between hOGG1 activity and solution accessibility at the ends of the DNA to transient unwrapping of the DNA from the protein core, thus exposing the inward-facing lesions.

Rate-determining Step of Flap Endonuclease 1 (FEN1) Reflects a Kinetic Bias against Long Flaps and Trinucleotide Repeat Sequences.

Flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) is a structure-specific nuclease responsible for removing 5'-flaps formed during Okazaki fragment maturation and long patch base excision repair. In this work, we use rapid quench flow techniques to examine the rates of 5'-flap removal on DNA substrates of varying length and sequence. Of particular interest are flaps containing trinucleotide repeats (TNR), which have been proposed to affect FEN1 activity and cause genetic instability. We report that FEN1 processes substrates containing flaps of 30 nucleotides or fewer at comparable single-turnover rates. However, for flaps longer than 30 nucleotides, FEN1 kinetically discriminates substrates based on flap length and flap sequence. In particular, FEN1 removes flaps containing TNR sequences at a rate slower than mixed sequence flaps of the same length. Furthermore, multiple-turnover kinetic analysis reveals that the rate-determining step of FEN1 switches as a function of flap length from product release to chemistry (or a step prior to chemistry). These results provide a kinetic perspective on the role of FEN1 in DNA replication and repair and contribute to our understanding of FEN1 in mediating genetic instability of TNR sequences.