Due to the abundant presence of alkylating agents in living cells and the environment, DNA alkylation is generally unavoidable. Among the alkylated DNA lesions, O4-alkylthymidine (O4-alkyldT) are known to be highly mutagenic and persistent in mammalian tissues. Not much is known about how the structures of the alkyl group affect the repair and replicative bypass of the O4-alkyldT lesions, or how the latter process is modulated by translesion synthesis polymerases. Herein, we synthesized oligodeoxyribonucleotides harboring eight site-specifically inserted O4-alkyldT lesions and examined their impact on DNA replication in Escherichia coli cells. We showed that the replication past all the O4-alkyldT lesions except (S)- and (R)-sBudT was highly efficient, and these lesions directed very high frequencies of dGMP misincorporation in E. coli cells. While SOS-induced DNA polymerases play redundant roles in bypassing most of the O4-alkyldT lesions, the bypass of (S)- and (R)-sBudT necessitated Pol V. Moreover, Ada was not involved in the repair of any O4-alkyldT lesions, Ogt was able to repair O4-MedT and, to a lesser extent, O4-EtdT and O4-nPrdT, but not other O4-alkyldT lesions. Together, our study provided important new knowledge about the repair of the O4-alkyldT lesions and their recognition by the E. coli replication machinery.
由于活细胞和环境中大量存在烷基化剂,DNA烷基化通常是不可避免的。在烷基化 DNA 损伤中,已知 O4-烷基
胸苷 (O4-烷基dT) 在哺乳动物组织中具有高度诱变性和持久性。关于烷基的结构如何影响 O4-烷基dT 损伤的修复和复制旁路,或者后一个过程如何由跨损伤合成聚合酶调节,人们知之甚少。在此,我们合成了含有八个位点特异性插入的 O4-烷基dT 损伤的寡脱氧
核糖核苷酸,并检查了它们对大肠杆菌细胞中 DNA 复制的影响。我们表明,除了 (S)-和 (R)-sBudT 之外,经过所有 O4-烷基dT 损伤的复制都是高效的,并且这些损伤导致大肠杆菌细胞中非常高频率的 dGMP 错误掺入。虽然 SOS 诱导的
DNA 聚合酶在绕过大多数 O4-烷基dT 损伤方面发挥着多余的作用,但 (S)-和 (R)-sBudT 的绕过需要 Pol V。此外,Ada 不参与任何 O4-烷基dT 的修复Ogt 能够修复 O4-MedT,并在较小程度上修复 O4-EtdT 和 O4-nPrdT,但不能修复其他 O4-烷基dT 损伤。总之,我们的研究提供了有关 O4-烷基dT 损伤修复及其被大肠杆菌复制机制识别的重要新知识。