Generation, Biological Consequences and Repair Mechanisms of Cytosine Deamination in DNA
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J. Radiat. Res., 50, 19–26 (2009) Review Generation, Biological Consequences and Repair Mechanisms of Cytosine Deamination in DNA# Shin-Ichiro YONEKURA, Nobuya NAKAMURA, Shuji YONEI and Qiu-Mei ZHANG-AKIYAMA* Deamination of Cytosine/Uracil/Transition Mutations/Base Excision Repair/Uracil-DNA Glycosylase/ dUTPase. Base moieties in DNA are spontaneously threatened by naturally occurring chemical reactions such as deamination, hydrolysis and oxidation. These DNA modifications have been considered to be major causes of cell death, mutations and cancer induction in organisms. Organisms have developed the DNA base excision repair pathway as a defense mechanism to protect them from these threats. DNA glycosy- lases, the key enzyme in the base excision repair pathway, are highly conserved in evolution. Uracil constantly occurs in DNA. Uracil in DNA arises by spontaneous deamination of cytosine to generate pro- mutagenic U:G mispairs. Uracil in DNA is also produced by the incorporation of dUMP during DNA replication. Uracil-DNA glycosylase (UNG) acts as a major repair enzyme that protects DNA from the deleterious consequences of uracil. The first UNG activity was discovered in E. coli in 1974. This was also the first discovery of base excision repair. The sequence encoded by the ung gene demonstrates that the E. coli UNG is highly conserved in viruses, bacteria, archaea, yeast, mice and humans. In this review, we will focus on central and recent findings on the generation, biological consequences and repair mechanisms of uracil in DNA and on the biological significance of uracil-DNA glycosylase. ination by the complementary strand.1,4) Pro-mutagenic G:U GENERATION, BIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES mispairs cause G:C to A:T transition mutations, if not repaired OF CYTOSINE DEAMINATION prior to the next round of DNA replication.1,3–5,7) Deamination of cytosine in cyclobutane dimers is markedly faster than that 1,4,6) DNA reacts continually with H2O (hydrolysis) and reactive of cytosine in other sequences, and has been implicated in oxygen species, resulting in multiple spontaneous DNA UV-mutagenesis in both bacteria and mammalian cells.1,8,9) modifications.1–6) Four bases normally present in DNA contain Uracil also occurs in DNA through incorporation of exocyclic amino groups. The loss of these amino groups dUMP instead of dTMP by DNA polymerases during repli- (deamination) in cytosine, adenine, guanine and 5- cation.1,3–5,10,11) Incorporated dUMP forms U:A base pairs that methylcytosine occurs spontaneously and results in the are not directly mutagenic, but may be cytotoxic.1,3–5,12) conversion to uracil, hypoxanthine, xanthine and thymine, Substitution of thymine with uracil is a major source of respectively.3,4,6) The deamination of cytosine (Fig. 1) is endogenous abasic (AP) sites,12) which may mediate the cyto- estimated to result in 100–500 uracil residues per mammalian toxicity of uracil in DNA. dUTP is a normally occurring inter- genome per day.1,4–6) Cytosine deamination in single-stranded DNA is reported to be 200–300 times faster than that in double- stranded DNA.1,3–6) Single-stranded regions in replication forks and transcription bubbles are not protected from deam- *Corresponding author: Phone: +075-753-4097, Fax: +075-753-4087, E-mail: [email protected] Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-Oiwakecho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan. #Foot-note: Translated and modified from Radiat. Biol. Res. Comm. Vol. 42; 132–146 (2007, in Japanese). doi:10.1269/jrr.08080 Fig. 1. Deamination of the 4 position of cytosine generates uracil. J. Radiat. Res., Vol. 50, No. 1 (2009); http://jrr.jstage.jst.go.jp 20 S.-I. Yonekura et al. mediate in nucleotide metabolism, but its level is kept low by U:A mispairs in DNA.1,3–5,18) Far more uracil residues than an efficient dUTPase (DUT). The pyrophosphatase activity of normal are incorporated into DNA in the dut mutant cells, dUTPase hydrolyzes dUTP to dUMP and PPi, which prevents as described above. The increased levels of uracil in DNA the incorporation of dUMP into DNA.1,3–5) Uracil incorpora- are also reduced by UNG. UNG does not possess associated tion into DNA is presumed to occur on an average of one per AP lyase activity, and the resultant AP sites are processed by 2,000–3,000 nucleotides in the dut mutant deficient in AP endonucleases.1,3–5,22) E. coli cells deficient in dUTPase dUTPase. Tye et al. (1978) reported that E. coli mutants defec- (dut) and exonuclease III (the major AP endonuclease in E. tive in both the dut and ung genes accumulate more uracil in coli, xthA) are therefore not viable.15) their DNA.10) Lari et al. (2006) determined the steady-state In E. coli, there are some uracil-removing enzymatic levels of uracil residues in DNA using the Ung-ARP assay.13) activities other than UNG. For example, mismatch-specific The uracil levels are 3,000–8,000/106 nucleotides in the ung uracil-DNA glycosylase (MUG) also removes uracil from dut mutant of E. coli, in contract to about 1/106 nucleotides in U:G mismatches.1,3-5) MUG has been thought to be a backup the wild-type strain (ung+ dut+).12,13) enzyme of UNG.3–5,23) MUG can act on mutagenic alkylated The frequency of spontaneous G:C to A:T transitions bases and 3,N4-ethenocytosine.23) significantly increases in E. coli and S. cerevisiae ung Endonuclease V (Nfi) in E. coli selectively cleaves mutants deficient in UNG.1,3–5,14–16) Increased spontaneous untreated single-stranded DNA and duplex DNA containing mutations in the ung mutants were also observed using λ uracil, hypoxanthine and mismatches.24–26) When the nfi bacteriophage.16) When λ phage is treated with bisulfite, an mutant is treated with nitrous acid, it exhibits high frequencies agent known to cause cytosine deamination in DNA, the of A:T to G:C and G:C to A:T transition mutations.11,24–26) frequency of clear-plaque mutations is increased an Nitrous acid causes deamination of adenine and converts additional 20-fold when the phage is grown on E. coli ung adenine to hypoxanthine.26) The resulting deoxyinosine mutant rather than on ung+ cells.16) On the other hand, the (hypoxanthine deoxyribonucleoside) induces A:T to G:C frequency of bisulfite-induced mutations in E. coli ung transitions through pairing with cytosine, resulting in possible mutant is almost equal to that in the wild-type strain. The targets for Nfi.27) The Nfi enzyme was originally identified authors suggested that cellular uracil DNA glycosylase as a deoxyinosine 3’-endonuclease that cleaves DNA near might be inactivated by the bisulfite treatment.16) dIMP residues, mismatched bases, urea residues and AP sites.24–26) While nitrous acid causes deamination of cytosine URACIL-DNA GLYCOSYLASES IN BACTERIA, to generate uracil, it does not play the causative role in YEAST AND NEMATODE increased G:C to T:A transitions in the nfi mutant cells, because the ung mutant does not affect the transition fre- Endogenous DNA damage is mainly repaired by the base quency induced by nitrous acid. Schounten and Weiss excision repair pathway. The repair pathway is initiated by (1999) suggested a role for endonuclease V in the removal monofunctional DNA glycosylases that only remove the of deaminated guanine (i.e., xanthine) from DNA.26) altered base (e.g., uracil-DNA glycosylase) or bifunctional Bacteriophage PBS2 normally contains uracil instead of glycosylases that in addition to base removal incise the thymine in its DNA. Bacillus subtilis is the natural host for resulting apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site by an associated this bacteriophage. As indicated by the high level of UNG AP lyase activity (e.g., endonuclease III).1,3,4,17–19) The uracil activity present in extracts from B. subtilis, PBS2 would be N-glycosylase activity (UNG) of E. coli was the first DNA easily inactivated in B. subtilis. Following infection, the glycosylase to be discovered in a search for activities that phage induces the expression of PBS2 DNA encoded uracil- would repair uracil in DNA.20,21) UNG recognizes uracil in DNA glycosylase inhibitor (Ugi).28,29) Ugi forms a stable 1:1 DNA and removes it from the DNA backbone as the first complex with Ung and inactivates it. Ugi specifically inhib- step of the base excision repair pathway for uracil.20) The its the uracil-DNA glycosylase activity of UNG family-1 open reading frame of the ung gene in E. coli encodes a pro- protein.3–5,28,29) Therefore, Ugi is often used to examine tein of 229 amino acids. The purified enzyme from E. coil whether or not the biological effect of uracil-removing activ- hydrolyzes the N-glycosylic bond between uracil and deox- ities is due to the family 1 uracil-DNA glycosylase.3,30) yribose, thus releasing a free uracil and leaving an AP site In yeast, UNG homologs function in both the nucleus and in DNA.3–5) AP endonucleases recognize the resultant AP mitochondria. The ung-1 mutant of S. cerevisiae shows a site and cleave the phosphodiester backbone 5’ to the AP high frequency of spontaneous mutations in the nuclear site. This step is followed by DNA repair synthesis by DNA SUP4-o gene31) and mitochondrial petite loci, compared polymerases, and the DNA nick is finally rejoined by the with the isogenic wild-type cells.32) Deletion of the dut-1 action of DNA ligase.2–5) UNG of E. coli can remove roughly gene that encodes dUTPase is lethal in S. cerevisiae owing 800 uracil residues from DNA per minute and is present at to cell cycle arrest.4,33,34) However, the viability of the dut-1 about 300 molecules per cell.4) strain is restored when the ung gene is disrupted simulta- UNG of E.