Morinaga Hironobu, Yonekura Shin-Ichiro, Nakamura Nobuya, Sugiyama Hiroshi, Yonei Shuji, Zhang-Akiyama Qiu-Mei
Laboratory of Radiation Biology, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University Kitashirakawa-Oiwakecho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
DNA Repair (Amst). 2009 Jul 4;8(7):844-51. doi: 10.1016/j.dnarep.2009.04.020. Epub 2009 May 28.
Oxidatively damaged bases in DNA cause many types of deleterious effects. The main enzyme that removes such lesions is DNA glycosylase, and accordingly, DNA glycosylase plays an important role in genome stability. Recently, a relationship between DNA glycosylases and aging has been suggested, but it remains controversial. Here, we investigated DNA glycosylases of C. elegans, which is a useful model organism for studying aging. We firstly identified a C. elegans homolog of endonuclease III (NTH), which is a well-conserved DNA glycosylase for oxidatively damaged pyrimidine bases, based on the activity and homology. Blast searching of the Wormbase database retrieved a sequence R10E4.5, highly homologous to the human NTH1. However, the R10E4.5-encoded protein did not have NTH activity, and this was considered to be due to lack of the N-terminal region crucial for the activity. Therefore, we purified the protein encoded by the sequence containing both R10E4.5 and the 117-bp region upstream from it, and found that the protein had the NTH activity. The endogenous CeNTH in the extract of C. elegans showed the same DNA glycosylase activity. Therefore, we concluded that the genuine C. elegans NTH gene is not the R10E4.5 but the sequence containing both R10E4.5 and the 117-bp upstream region. NTH-deficient C. elegans showed no difference from the wild-type in lifespan and was not more sensitive to two oxidizing agents, H2O2 and methyl viologen. This suggests that C. elegans has an alternative DNA glycosylase that repairs pyrimidine bases damaged by these agents. Indeed, DNA glycosylase activity that cleaved thymine glycol containing oligonucleotides was detected in the extract of the NTH-deficient C. elegans.
DNA中的氧化损伤碱基会引发多种有害效应。去除此类损伤的主要酶是DNA糖基化酶,因此,DNA糖基化酶在基因组稳定性中发挥着重要作用。最近,有人提出DNA糖基化酶与衰老之间存在关联,但仍存在争议。在此,我们研究了秀丽隐杆线虫的DNA糖基化酶,它是研究衰老的一种有用的模式生物。我们首先基于活性和同源性鉴定出一种秀丽隐杆线虫的核酸内切酶III(NTH)同源物,NTH是一种对氧化损伤嘧啶碱基具有高度保守性的DNA糖基化酶。在Wormbase数据库中进行Blast搜索,得到了一个与人类NTH1高度同源的序列R10E4.5。然而,R10E4.5编码的蛋白质不具有NTH活性,这被认为是由于缺乏对活性至关重要的N端区域。因此,我们纯化了由包含R10E4.5及其上游117 bp区域的序列编码的蛋白质,发现该蛋白质具有NTH活性。秀丽隐杆线虫提取物中的内源性CeNTH表现出相同的DNA糖基化酶活性。因此,我们得出结论,秀丽隐杆线虫真正的NTH基因不是R10E4.5,而是包含R10E4.5和上游117 bp区域的序列。NTH缺陷型秀丽隐杆线虫在寿命方面与野生型没有差异,并且对两种氧化剂过氧化氢和甲基紫精也没有更敏感。这表明秀丽隐杆线虫有一种替代的DNA糖基化酶来修复被这些试剂损伤的嘧啶碱基。事实上,在NTH缺陷型秀丽隐杆线虫的提取物中检测到了切割含胸腺嘧啶二醇寡核苷酸的DNA糖基化酶活性。