Marit Otterlei

Human and bacterial oxidative demethylases repair alkylation damage in both RNA and DNA

Repair of DNA damage is essential for maintaining genome integrity, and repair deficiencies in mammals are associated with cancer, neurological disease and developmental defects. Alkylation damage in DNA is repaired by at least three different mechanisms, including damage reversal by oxidative demethylation of 1-methyladenine and 3-methylcytosine by Escherichia coli AlkB. By contrast, little is known about consequences and cellular handling of alkylation damage to RNA. Here we show that two human AlkB homologues, hABH2 and hABH3, also are oxidative DNA demethylases and that AlkB and hABH3, but not hABH2, also repair RNA. Whereas AlkB and hABH3 prefer single-stranded nucleic acids, hABH2 acts more efficiently on double-stranded DNA. In addition, AlkB and hABH3 expressed in E. coli reactivate methylated RNA bacteriophage MS2 in vivo, illustrating the biological relevance of this repair activity and establishing RNA repair as a potentially important defence mechanism in living cells. The different catalytic properties and the different subnuclear localization patterns shown by the human homologues indicate that hABH2 and hABH3 have distinct roles in the cellular response to alkylation damage.

Base excision repair of DNA in mammalian cells

Base excision repair (BER) of DNA corrects a number of spontaneous and environmentally induced genotoxic or miscoding base lesions in a process initiated by DNA glycosylases. An AP endonuclease cleaves at the 5′ side of the abasic site and the repair process is subsequently completed via either short patch repair or long patch repair, which largely require different proteins. As one example, the UNG gene encodes both nuclear (UNG2) and mitochondrial (UNG1) uracil DNA glycosylase and prevents accumulation of uracil in the genome. BER is likely to have a major role in preserving the integrity of DNA during evolution and may prevent cancer.

Post‐replicative base excision repair in replication foci

Base excision repair (BER) is initiated by a DNA glycosylase and is completed by alternative routes, one of which requires proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and other proteins also involved in DNA replication. We report that the major nuclear uraci‐DNA glycosylase (UNG2) increases in S phase, during which it co‐localizes with incorporated BrdUrd in replication foci. Uracil is rapidly removed from replicatively incorporated dUMP residues in isolated nuclei. Neutralizing antibodies to UNG2 inhibit this removal, indicating that UNG2 is the major uraci‐DNA glycosylase responsible. PCNA and replication protein A (RPA) co‐localize with UNG2 in replication foci, and a direct molecular interaction of UNG2 with PCNA (one binding site) and RPA (two binding sites) was demonstrated using two‐hybrid assays, a peptide SPOT assay and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays. These results demonstrate rapid post‐replicative removal of incorporated uracil by UNG2 and indicate the formation of a BER complex that contains UNG2, RPA and PCNA close to the replication fork.

INDUCTION OF CYTOKINE PRODUCTION FROM HUMAN MONOCYTES STIMULATED WITH ALGINATE

Summary Alginates are polysaccharides with gel-forming properties composed of 1,4-linked β-D-mannuronic acid (M), α-L-guluronic acid (G), and alternating (MG) blocks. Alginate can be used as a matrix for implanted cells in vivo. In this study, we have examined the ability of alginates and their components to stimulate human monocytes to produce tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and interleukin-1. Alginates stimulated the monocytes to produce high levels of all three cytokines. Low G alginates were approximately 10 times more potent in inducing cytokine production compared with high G alginates. The M-blocks and the MG-blocks, but not the G-blocks, stimulated the cytokine production. The results demonstrate that the mannuronic acid residues are the active cytokine inducers in alginates.

hUNG2 Is the Major Repair Enzyme for Removal of Uracil from U:A Matches, U:G Mismatches, and U in Single-stranded DNA, with hSMUG1 as a Broad Specificity Backup

hUNG2 and hSMUG1 are the only known glycosylases that may remove uracil from both double- and single-stranded DNA in nuclear chromatin, but their relative contribution to base excision repair remains elusive. The present study demonstrates that both enzymes are strongly stimulated by physiological concentrations of Mg2+ , at which the activity of hUNG2 is 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than of hSMUG1. Moreover, Mg2+ increases the preference of hUNG2 toward uracil in ssDNA nearly 40-fold. APE1 has a strong stimulatory effect on hSMUG1 against dsU, apparently because of enhanced dissociation of hSMUG1 from AP sites in dsDNA. hSMUG1 also has a broader substrate specificity than hUNG2, including 5-hydroxymethyluracil and 3,N 4-ethenocytosine. hUNG2 is excluded from, whereas hSMUG1 accumulates in, nucleoli in living cells. In contrast, only hUNG2 accumulates in replication foci in the S-phase. hUNG2 in nuclear extracts initiates base excision repair of plasmids containing either U:A and U:G in vitro. Moreover, an additional but delayed repair of the U:G plasmid is observed that is not inhibited by neutralizing antibodies against hUNG2 or hSMUG1. We propose a model in which hUNG2 is responsible for both prereplicative removal of deaminated cytosine and postreplicative removal of misincorporated uracil at the replication fork. We also provide evidence that hUNG2 is the major enzyme for removal of deaminated cytosine outside of replication foci, with hSMUG1 acting as a broad specificity backup.

A Sequence in the N-terminal Region of Human Uracil-DNA Glycosylase with Homology to XPA Interacts with the C-terminal Part of the 34-kDa Subunit of Replication Protein A

Uracil-DNA glycosylase releases free uracil from DNA and initiates base excision repair for removal of this potentially mutagenic DNA lesion. Using the yeast two-hybrid system, human uracil-DNA glycosylase encoded by the UNG gene (UNG) was found to interact with the C-terminal part of the 34-kDa subunit of replication protein A (RPA2). No interaction with RPA4 (a homolog of RPA2), RPA1, or RPA3 was observed. A sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with trimeric RPA and the two-hybrid system both demonstrated that the interaction depends on a region in UNG localized between amino acids 28 and 79 in the open reading frame. In this part of UNG a 23-amino acid sequence has a significant homology to the RPA2-binding region of XPA, a protein involved in damage recognition in nucleotide excision repair. Trimeric RPA did not enhance the activity of UNG in vitro on single- or double-stranded DNA. A part of the N-terminal region of UNG corresponding in size to the complete presequence was efficiently removed by proteinase K, leaving the proteinase K-resistant compact catalytic domain intact and fully active. These results indicate that the N-terminal part constitutes a separate structural domain required for RPA binding and suggest a possible function for RPA in base excision repair.

Cell cycle‐specific UNG2 phosphorylations regulate protein turnover, activity and association with RPA

Human UNG2 is a multifunctional glycosylase that removes uracil near replication forks and in non‐replicating DNA, and is important for affinity maturation of antibodies in B cells. How these diverse functions are regulated remains obscure. Here, we report three new phosphoforms of the non‐catalytic domain that confer distinct functional properties to UNG2. These are apparently generated by cyclin‐dependent kinases through stepwise phosphorylation of S23, T60 and S64 in the cell cycle. Phosphorylation of S23 in late G1/early S confers increased association with replication protein A (RPA) and replicating chromatin and markedly increases the catalytic turnover of UNG2. Conversely, progressive phosphorylation of T60 and S64 throughout S phase mediates reduced binding to RPA and flag UNG2 for breakdown in G2 by forming a cyclin E/c‐myc‐like phosphodegron. The enhanced catalytic turnover of UNG2 p‐S23 likely optimises the protein to excise uracil along with rapidly moving replication forks. Our findings may aid further studies of how UNG2 initiates mutagenic rather than repair processing of activation‐induced deaminase‐generated uracil at Ig loci in B cells.

Human AlkB Homolog 1 Is a Mitochondrial Protein That Demethylates 3-Methylcytosine in DNA and RNA

The Escherichia coli AlkB protein and human homologs hABH2 and hABH3 are 2-oxoglutarate (2OG)/Fe(II)-dependent DNA/RNA demethylases that repair 1-methyladenine and 3-methylcytosine residues. Surprisingly, hABH1, which displays the strongest homology to AlkB, failed to show repair activity in two independent studies. Here, we show that hABH1 is a mitochondrial protein, as demonstrated using fluorescent fusion protein expression, immunocytochemistry, and Western blot analysis. A fraction is apparently nuclear and this fraction increases strongly if the fluorescent tag is placed at the N-terminal end of the protein, thus interfering with mitochondrial targeting. Molecular modeling of hABH1 based upon the sequence and known structures of AlkB and hABH3 suggested an active site almost identical to these enzymes. hABH1 decarboxylates 2OG in the absence of a prime substrate, and the activity is stimulated by methylated nucleotides. Employing three different methods we demonstrate that hABH1 demethylates 3-methylcytosine in single-stranded DNA and RNA in vitro. Site-specific mutagenesis confirmed that the putative Fe(II) and 2OG binding residues are essential for activity. In conclusion, hABH1 is a functional mitochondrial AlkB homolog that repairs 3-methylcytosine in single-stranded DNA and RNA.

B cells from hyper-IgM patients carrying UNG mutations lack ability to remove uracil from ssDNA and have elevated genomic uracil.

The generation of high-affinity antibodies requires somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class switch recombination (CSR) at the immunoglobulin (Ig) locus. Both processes are triggered by activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) and require UNG-encoded uracil-DNA glycosylase. AID has been suggested to function as an mRNA editing deaminase or as a single-strand DNA deaminase. In the latter model, SHM may result from replicative incorporation of dAMP opposite U or from error-prone repair of U, whereas CSR may be triggered by strand breaks at abasic sites. Here, we demonstrate that extracts of UNG-proficient human B cell lines efficiently remove U from single-stranded DNA. In B cell lines from hyper-IgM patients carrying UNG mutations, the single-strand–specific uracil-DNA glycosylase, SMUG1, cannot complement this function. Moreover, the UNG mutations lead to increased accumulation of genomic uracil. One mutation results in an F251S substitution in the UNG catalytic domain. Although this UNG form was fully active and stable when expressed in Escherichia coli, it was mistargeted to mitochondria and degraded in mammalian cells. Our results may explain why SMUG1 cannot compensate the UNG2 deficiency in human B cells, and are fully consistent with the DNA deamination model that requires active nuclear UNG2. Based on our findings and recent information in the literature, we present an integrated model for the initiating steps in CSR.

Characterization of binding and TNF-α-inducing ability of chitosans on monocytes: the involvement of CD14

Chitosans with different chemical composition were found to induce TNF-alpha production from human monocytes. Their ability to induce TNF-alpha was found to be highly dependent on neutral-solubility and molecular weight. Monoclonal antibodies against CD14 inhibited TNF-alpha production from monocytes stimulated with neutral-soluble chitosans. Binding studies indicated that lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and neutral-soluble chitosans share a binding site on monocytes which involves CD14. TNF-alpha production from monocytes stimulated with chitosans was dependent on serum. LPS-binding protein (LBP) enhanced the chitosan-induced TNF-alpha production only to a minor degree, suggesting that serum proteins other than LBP play an important role in the stimulatory effect.