Nucleoside diphosphate kinases (NDP kinases) form a family of oligomeric enzymes present in all organisms. Eukaryotic NDP kinases are hexamers composed of identical subunits (Ϸ17 kDa). A distinctive property of human NDPK-B encoded by the gene nm23-H 2 is its ability to stimulate the gene transcription. This property is independent of its catalytic activity and is possibly related to the role of this protein in cellular events including differentiation and tumor metastasis. In this paper, we report the first characterization of human NDPK-B⅐DNA complex formation using a filter-binding assay and fluorescence spectroscopy. We analyzed the binding of several oligonucleotides mimicking the promoter region of the c-myc oncogene including variants in sequence, structure, and length of both strands. We show that NDPK-B binds to single-stranded oligonucleotides in a nonsequence specific manner, but that it exhibits a poor binding activity to double-stranded oligonucleotides. This indicates that the specificity of recognition to DNA is a function of the structural conformation of DNA rather than of its specific sequence. Moreover, competition experiments performed with all nucleotides provide evidence for the contribution of the six active sites in the DNA⅐protein complex formation. We propose a mechanism through which human NDPK-B could stimulate transcription of c-myc or possibly other genes involved in cellular differentiation.

Recently, a DNA binding protein 'PUF' was purified that binds to a poly-pyrimidine rich element in the human c-myc promoter. Cloning of the corresponding gene surprisingly identified this putative transcription factor as isoform B of the enzyme nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDPK-B) [Postel et al. (1993) Science, 261, 478-480], the product of the potential metastasis suppressor gene nm23-H2. Using different recombinant NDP kinases, we demonstrate by electrophoretic mobility shift analysis (EMSA) that the NDP kinase DNA binding properties are predominantly observed with human isoform B. Unlike typical DNA binding proteins that are involved in transcriptional regulation, binding occurs to single-stranded DNA rather than to a double-stranded oligonucleotide. As a consequence, complexes of single-stranded DNA and NDPK-B are generated from double-stranded oligonucleotide hybrids in an ATP independent manner. In addition to the c-myc element, NDPK-B is binding in vitro to a variety of poly-pyrimidine rich sequences including dC or dT homo-oligomers, (CT)n dinucleotide repeats, the initiator region of the Adenovirus major late promoter and even poly-pyrimidine rich RNAs. The possible consequences of these findings in understanding the multiple roles of NDP kinase are discussed.

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