DNA polymerase θ protects against genomic instability via an alternative end-joining repair pathway for DNA double-strand breaks. Breast, lung and oral cancers over-express polymerase θ, 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 employs a specialized thumb subdomain to establish unique upstream contacts to the primer DNA strand, including an interaction to 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.

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.

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.

Summary Endonuclease VIII-like 3 (Neil3) is a DNA glycosylase of the base excision repair pathway which protects cells from oxidative DNA damage by excising a broad spectrum of cytotoxic and mutagenic base lesions. Interestingly Neil3 exhibits an unusual preference for DNA with single-stranded regions. Here we report the first crystal structure of a Neil3 enzyme. Although the glycosylase region of mouse Neil3 (MmuNeil3Δ324) exhibits the same overall fold as that of other Fpg/Nei proteins, it presents distinct structural features. First, MmuNeil3Δ324 lacks the “αF-β9/10 loop” that caps the flipped-out 8-oxoG in bacterial Fpg, which is consistent with its inability to cleave 8-oxoguanine. Secondly, Neil3 not only lacks two of the three void-filling residues that stabilize the opposite strand but it also harbors negatively-charged residues which create an unfavorable electrostatic environment for the phosphate backbone of that strand. These structural features provide insight into Neil3's substrate specificity and marked preference for ssDNA.

No abstract

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.

No abstract

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.