www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/ Oncotarget, Advance Publications 2015 The dual topoisomerase inhibitor A35 preferentially and specially targets topoisomerase 2a by enhancing pre-strand and post-strand cleavage and inhibiting DNA religation Wuli Zhao1,*, Guohua Jiang2,*, Chongwen Bi1, Yangbiao Li1, Jingbo Liu3, Cheng Ye1, Hongwei He1, Liang Li1, Danqing Song1,*, Rongguang Shao1,* 1 Key Laboratory of Antibiotic Bioengineering, Ministry of Health, Laboratory of Oncology, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China 2Analysis and Testing Center, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China 3China Meitan General Hospital, Beijing, China *These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Rongguang Shao, e-mail:
[email protected] Keywords: dual topoisomerase inhibitor, topoisomerase2a, cardiotoxicity, DNA religation, enhancing strand cleavage Received: May 24, 2015 Accepted: September 25, 2015 Published: October 07, 2015 ABSTRACT DNA topoisomerases play a key role in tumor proliferation. Chemotherapeutics targeting topoisomerases have been widely used in clinical oncology, but resistance and side effects, particularly cardiotoxicity, usually limit their application. Clinical data show that a decrease in topoisomerase (top) levels is the primary factor responsible for resistance, but in cells there is compensatory effect between the levels of top1 and top2a. Here, we validated cyclizing-berberine A35, which is a dual top inhibitor and preferentially targets top2a. The impact on the top2a catalytic cycle indicated that A35 could intercalate into DNA but did not interfere with DNA-top binding and top2a ATPase activity. A35 could facilitate DNA-top2a cleavage complex formation by enhancing pre-strand and post-strand cleavage and inhibiting religation, suggesting this compound can be a topoisomerase poison and had a district mechanism from other topoisomerase inhibitors.