April M. Averill

The NEIL glycosylases remove oxidized guanine lesions from telomeric and promoter quadruplex DNA structures

G-quadruplex is a four-stranded G-rich DNA structure that is highly susceptible to oxidation. Despite the important roles that G-quadruplexes play in telomere biology and gene transcription, neither the impact of guanine lesions on the stability of quadruplexes nor their repair are well understood. Here, we show that the oxidized guanine lesions 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoG), guanidinohydantoin (Gh) and spiroiminodihydantoin (Sp) reduce the thermostability and alter the folding of telomeric quadruplexes in a location-dependent manner. Also, the NEIL1 and NEIL3 DNA glycosylases can remove hydantoin lesions but none of the glycosylases, including OGG1, are able to remove 8-oxoG from telomeric quadruplexes. Interestingly, a hydantoin lesion at the site most prone to oxidation in quadruplex DNA is not efficiently removed by NEIL1 or NEIL3. However, NEIL1, NEIL2 and NEIL3 remove hydantoins from telomeric quadruplexes formed by five TTAGGG repeats much more rapidly than the commonly studied four-repeat quadruplex structures. We also show that APE1 cleaves furan in selected positions in Na+-coordinated telomeric quadruplexes. In promoter G-quadruplex DNA, the NEIL glycosylases primarily remove Gh from Na+-coordinated antiparallel quadruplexes but not K+-coordinated parallel quadruplexes containing VEGF or c-MYC promoter sequences. Thus, the NEIL DNA glycosylases may be involved in both telomere maintenance and in gene regulation.

Human DNA polymerase θ grasps the primer terminus to mediate DNA repair

DNA polymerase θ protects against genomic instability via an alternative end-joining repair pathway for DNA double-strand breaks. Polymerase θ is overexpressed in breast, lung and oral cancers, and reduction of its activity in mammalian cells increases sensitivity to double-strand break–inducing agents, including ionizing radiation. Reported here are crystal structures of the C-terminal polymerase domain from human polymerase θ, illustrating two potential modes of dimerization. One structure depicts insertion of ddATP opposite an abasic-site analog during translesion DNA synthesis. The second structure describes a cognate ddGTP complex. Polymerase θ uses a specialized thumb subdomain to establish unique upstream contacts to the primer DNA strand, including an interaction with the 3′-terminal phosphate from one of five distinctive insertion loops. These observations demonstrate how polymerase θ grasps the primer to bypass DNA lesions or extend poorly annealed DNA termini to mediate end-joining.

Structural characterization of viral ortholog of human DNA glycosylase NEIL1 bound to thymine glycol or 5-hydroxyuracil-containing DNA.

Background: Nei is a DNA glycosylase of the base excision repair pathway. Results: We present two crystal structures of an Nei bound to thymine glycol or 5-hydroxyuracil. Conclusion: Mutational analysis of active site residues suggests that lesion recognition happens before the damaged base is everted into the active site. Significance: These are the first structures of any Nei in complex with a damaged base. Thymine glycol (Tg) and 5-hydroxyuracil (5-OHU) are common oxidized products of pyrimidines, which are recognized and cleaved by two DNA glycosylases of the base excision repair pathway, endonuclease III (Nth) and endonuclease VIII (Nei). Although there are several structures of Nei enzymes unliganded or bound to an abasic (apurinic or apyrimidinic) site, until now there was no structure of an Nei bound to a DNA lesion. Mimivirus Nei1 (MvNei1) is an ortholog of human NEIL1, which was previously crystallized bound to DNA containing an apurinic site (Imamura, K., Wallace, S. S., and Doublié, S. (2009) J. Biol. Chem. 284, 26174–26183). Here, we present two crystal structures of MvNei1 bound to two oxidized pyrimidines, Tg and 5-OHU. Both lesions are flipped out from the DNA helix. Tg is in the anti conformation, whereas 5-OHU adopts both anti and syn conformations in the glycosylase active site. Only two protein side chains (Glu-6 and Tyr-253) are within hydrogen-bonding contact with either damaged base, and mutating these residues did not markedly affect the glycosylase activity. This finding suggests that lesion recognition by Nei occurs before the damaged base flips into the glycosylase active site.

Expression and purification of active mouse and human NEIL3 proteins.

Endonuclease VIII-like 3 (Neil3) is one of the five DNA glycosylases found in mammals that recognize and remove oxidized bases, and initiate the base excision repair (BER) pathway. Previous attempts to express and purify the mouse and human orthologs of Neil3 in their active form have not been successful. Here we report the construction of bicistronic expression vectors for expressing in Escherichia coli the full-length mouse Neil3 (MmuNeil3), its glycosylase domain (MmuNeil3Δ324), as well as the glycosylase domain of human Neil3 (NEIL3Δ324). The purified Neil3 proteins are all active, and NEIL3Δ324 exhibits similar glycosylase/lyase activity as MmuNeil3Δ324 on both single-stranded and double-stranded substrates containing thymine glycol (Tg), spiroiminodihydantoin (Sp) or an abasic site (AP). We show that N-terminal initiator methionine processing is critical for the activity of both mouse and human Neil3 proteins. Co-expressing an E. coli methionine aminopeptidase (EcoMap) Y168A variant with MmuNeil3, MmuNeil3Δ324 and NEIL3Δ324 improves the N-terminal methionine processing and increases the percentage of active Neil3 proteins in the preparation. The purified Neil3 proteins are suitable for biochemical, structural and functional studies.

Tumor-associated mutations in a conserved structural motif alter physical and biochemical properties of human RAD51 recombinase

Human RAD51 protein catalyzes DNA pairing and strand exchange reactions that are central to homologous recombination and homology-directed DNA repair. Successful recombination/repair requires the formation of a presynaptic filament of RAD51 on ssDNA. Mutations in BRCA2 and other proteins that control RAD51 activity are associated with human cancer. Here we describe a set of mutations associated with human breast tumors that occur in a common structural motif of RAD51. Tumor-associated D149N, R150Q and G151D mutations map to a Schellman loop motif located on the surface of the RecA homology domain of RAD51. All three variants are proficient in DNA strand exchange, but G151D is slightly more sensitive to salt than wild-type (WT). Both G151D and R150Q exhibit markedly lower catalytic efficiency for adenosine triphosphate hydrolysis compared to WT. All three mutations alter the physical properties of RAD51 nucleoprotein filaments, with G151D showing the most dramatic changes. G151D forms mixed nucleoprotein filaments with WT RAD51 that have intermediate properties compared to unmixed filaments. These findings raise the possibility that mutations in RAD51 itself may contribute to genome instability in tumor cells, either directly through changes in recombinase properties, or indirectly through changes in interactions with regulatory proteins.

Structural investigation of a viral ortholog of human NEIL2/3 DNA glycosylases.

Assault to DNA that leads to oxidative base damage is repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathway with specialized enzymes called DNA glycosylases catalyzing the first step of this pathway. These glycosylases can be categorized into two families: the HhH superfamily, which includes endonuclease III (or Nth), and the Fpg/Nei family, which comprises formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase (or Fpg) and endonuclease VIII (or Nei). In humans there are three Nei-like (NEIL) glycosylases: NEIL1, 2, and 3. Here we present the first crystal structure of a viral ortholog of the human NEIL2/NEIL3 proteins, Mimivirus Nei2 (MvNei2), determined at 2.04Å resolution. The C-terminal region of the MvNei2 enzyme comprises two conserved DNA binding motifs: the helix-two-turns-helix (H2TH) motif and a C-H-C-C type zinc-finger similar to that of human NEIL2. The N-terminal region of MvNei2 is most closely related to NEIL3. Like NEIL3, MvNei2 bears a valine at position 2 instead of the usual proline and it lacks two of the three conserved void-filling residues present in other members of the Fpg/Nei family. Mutational analysis of the only conserved void-filling residue methionine 72 to alanine yields an MvNei2 variant with impaired glycosylase activity. Mutation of the adjacent His73 causes the enzyme to be more productive thereby suggesting a plausible role for this residue in the DNA lesion search process.

The miscoding potential of 5-hydroxycytosine arises due to template instability in the replicative polymerase active site.

5-Hydroxycytosine (5-OHC) is a stable oxidation product of cytosine associated with an increased frequency of C → T transition mutations. When this lesion escapes recognition by the base excision repair pathway and persists to serve as a templating base during DNA synthesis, replicative DNA polymerases often misincorporate dAMP at the primer terminus, which can lead to fixation of mutations and subsequent disease. To characterize the dynamics of DNA synthesis opposite 5-OHC, we initiated a comparison of unmodified dCMP to 5-OHC, 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC), and 5-methylcytosine (5-MEC) in which these bases act as templates in the active site of RB69 gp43, a high-fidelity DNA polymerase sharing homology with human replicative DNA polymerases. This study presents the first crystal structure of any DNA polymerase binding this physiologically important premutagenic DNA lesion, showing that while dGMP is stabilized by 5-OHC through normal Watson-Crick base pairing, incorporation of dAMP leads to unstacking and instability in the template. Furthermore, the electronegativity of the C5 substituent appears to be important in the miscoding potential of these cytosine-like templates. While dAMP is incorporated opposite 5-OHC ~5 times more efficiently than opposite unmodified dCMP, an elevated level of incorporation is also observed opposite 5-FC but not 5-MEC. Taken together, these data imply that the nonuniform templating by 5-OHC is due to weakened stacking capabilities, which allows dAMP incorporation to proceed in a manner similar to that observed opposite abasic sites.

Human cells contain a factor that facilitates the DNA glycosylase-mediated excision of oxidized bases from occluded sites in nucleosomes

Reactive oxygen species generate some 20,000 base lesions per human cell per day. The vast majority of these potentially mutagenic or cytotoxic lesions are subject to base excision repair (BER). Although chromatin remodelers have been shown to enhance the excision of oxidized bases from nucleosomes in vitro, it is not clear that they are recruited to and act at sites of BER in vivo. To test the hypothesis that cells possess factors that enhance BER in chromatin, we assessed the capacity of nuclear extracts from human cells to excise thymine glycol (Tg) lesions from exogenously added, model nucleosomes. The DNA glycosylase NTHL1 in these extracts was able to excise Tg from both naked DNA and sites in nucleosomes that earlier studies had shown to be sterically accessible. However, the same extracts were able to excise lesions from sterically-occluded sites in nucleosomes only after the addition of Mg2+/ATP. Gel mobility shift assays indicated that nucleosomes remain largely intact following the Mg2+/ATP -dependent excision reaction. Size exclusion chromatography indicated that the NTHL1-stimulating activity has a relatively low molecular weight, close to that of NTHL1 and other BER glycosylases; column fractions that contained the very large chromatin remodeling complexes did not exhibit this same stimulatory activity. These results indicate that cells possess a factor(s) that promotes the initiation of BER in chromatin, but differs from most known chromatin remodeling complexes.

RAD51 variant proteins from human lung and kidney tumors exhibit DNA strand exchange defects.

In human cells, error-free repair of DNA double-strand breaks requires the DNA pairing and strand exchange activities of RAD51 recombinase. Activation of RAD51 recombination activities requires the assembly of RAD51 presynaptic filaments on the single-stranded DNA that forms at resected DSB ends. Mutations in proteins that control presynaptic filament assembly, such as BRCA2, and in RAD51 itself, are associated with human breast cancer. Here we describe the properties of two mutations in RAD51 protein that derive from human lung and kidney tumors, respectively. Sequence variants Q268P and Q272L both map to the DNA binding loop 2 (L2) region of RAD51, a motif that is involved in DNA binding and in the allosteric activation of ATP hydrolysis and DNA strand exchange activities. Both mutations alter the thermal stability, DNA binding, and ATPase properties of RAD51, however both variants retain intrinsic DNA strand exchange activity towards oligonucleotide substrates under optimized conditions. In contrast, both Q268P and Q272L variants exhibit drastically reduced DNA strand exchange activity in reaction mixtures containing long homologous ssDNA and dsDNA substrates and human RPA protein. Mixtures of wild-type and variant proteins also exhibit reduced DNA strand exchange activity, suggesting that heterozygous mutations could negatively affect DNA recombination and repair processes in vivo. Together, the findings of this study suggest that hypomorphic missense mutations in RAD51 protein could be drivers of genomic instability in cancer cells, and thereby contribute to the etiology of metastatic disease.

Defects in recombination activity caused by somatic and germline mutations in the multimerization/BRCA2 binding region of human RAD51 protein

The human RAD51 recombinase possesses DNA pairing and strand exchange activities that are essential for the error-free, homology-directed repair of DNA double-strand breaks. The recombination activities of RAD51 are activated upon its assembly into presynaptic filaments on single-stranded DNA at resected DSB ends. Defects in filament assembly caused by mutations in RAD51 or its regulators such as BRCA2 are associated with human cancer. Here we describe two novel RAD51 missense variants located in the multimerization/BRCA2 binding region of RAD51. F86L is a breast tumor-derived somatic variant that affects the interface between adjacent RAD51 protomers in the presynaptic filament. E258A is a germline variant that maps to the interface region between the N-terminal and RecA homology domains of RAD51. Both variants exhibit abnormal biochemistry including altered DNA strand exchange activity. Both variants inhibit the DNA strand exchange activity of wild-type RAD51, suggesting a mechanism for negative dominance. The inhibitory effect of F86L on wild-type RAD51 is surprising since F86L alone exhibits robust DNA strand exchange activity. Our findings indicate that even DNA strand exchange-proficient variants can have negative functional interactions with wild-type RAD51. Thus heterozygous F86L or E258 mutations in RAD51 could promote genomic instability, and thereby contribute to tumor progression.