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abstracts
Humans are frequently exposed to the environmentally ubiquitous and potentially carcinigenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, benzo[a]pyrene (BP). BP is metabolized to highly reactive benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxides (BPDEs) in the cells. BPDEs react with DNA predominantly at the N2 position of guanine and form bulky adducts. The major BP adduct is (+)-trans-anti-[BP]-N2-dG (BP-N2-dG) that is carcinogenic. The bulky adduct block DNA synthesis by replicative or high-fidelity DNA polymerases. Some of the specialized lesion bypass polymerases (mostly belonging to Y-family) can replicate through this bulky adduct but often in an error prone manner, resulting in mutagenesis. Among the four human Y-family polymerases Polη, Polκ, Polι and Rev1, Polκ is unique in its ability for efficient and error-free replication through BP induced BP-N2-dG adduct. In this study, we determined the crystal structures of human Polκ (hPolκ) in ternary complex with DNA and an incoming nucleotide dCTP analogue. The crystals contain DNA with either G base or (+)-trans-anti-[BP]-N2-dG adduct at a template-primer junction and diffract to 2.5 Å and 2.8 Å, respectively. The structures reveal that hPolκ is able to accommodate the bulky adducted DNA in its minor groove without base flipping and nucleotide looping out. The bulky adduct has the polycyclic BP moiety in the minor groove in the regular helical conformation. Polκ has a unique active site that is more open at the minor groove side than other Y-family polymerases. The damaged guanine is in the anti-conformation, the dCMPNPP incoming nucleotide maintains normal Watson-Crick pairing with the G* base. This is the first structure of eukaryotic Y-family polymerase carrying the minor groove BP adduct. The structure and biochemical analysis provides a basis for understanding how hPolκ can correctly bypass and tolerate BP induced BP-N2-dG adduct in human cells.
abstracts
Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is a DNA sliding clamp that coordinates DNA replication and repair. PCNA is loaded on and unloaded off of DNA during replication. It is loaded onto DNA by the replication factor C (RFC) complex. The mechanism of PCNA unloading is not fully understood however. ATPase family AAA domain containing protein 5 (ATAD5) interacts with subunits of RFC to form a RFC-like complex that functions in unloading PCNA. Reduced expression of ATAD5 extends the life of replication factories by retaining PCNA and other repliosome proteins on chromatin. ATAD5 also plays a role in maintaining genomic stability, as mutations to ATAD5 cause genomic instability in mice and human cells. The region of ATAD5 that interacts with PCNA had yet to be determined. Proteins interacting with PCNA usually have a PCNA-interaction protein (PIP) motif termed the PIP-box. Through sequence analysis, we identified a putative PIP-box in ATAD5. Using GST pull-down experiments, we found that the putative PIP-box bound to PCNA. Mutation of the key residues in the PIP-box abolished the binding. The interaction was also confirmed by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) analysis of PCNA and a synthetic peptide containing the PIP-box. The binding constant (Kd) of the PCNA-peptide interaction is 6.2μM, determined by the ITC assays. To further characterize the interaction, we co-crystallized PCNA and the ATAD5 peptide. The complex crystals diffracted to a resolution of 3.5Å. The crystals belong to the space group H3, with unit-cell parameters a = 83.6Å and c = 211.4Å. Our molecular replacement solution indicates that the peptide binds on PCNA at the conserved PIP-box binding pocket. Taken together, our work demonstrates that ATAD5 does contain a PIP motif that directly interacts with PCNA. The structure-function studies on the interaction will provide insights into the molecular mechanism of PCNA unloading and the role of ATAD5 in DNA replication and repair.
