Changing a leucine to a lysine residue makes NaeI endonuclease hypersensitive to DNA intercalative drugs.

A single amino acid change transforms restriction enzyme NaeI to a topoisomerase and recombinase (NaeI-L43K) that shows no sequence similarity to these protein families. This transformation appears to result from coupled endonuclease and ligase domains. To further elucidate the relationship between NaeI-L43K and the topoisomerase protein family, we studied the effect of the topoisomerase inhibitors on NaeI-L43K activity. The intercalative drugs amsacrine, ellipticine, and daunorubicin inhibited NaeI-L43K, whereas the nonintercalating drugs camptothecin, VP-16, and oxolinic acid did not. Ethidium bromide also inhibited NaeI-L43K, implying that intercalation is responsible for its inhibition. The effects of the intercalative drugs on the DNA cleavage steps of NaeI and NaeI-L43K were compared. The drugs hardly inhibited DNA cleavage by wild type NaeI but completely inhibited DNA cleavage by NaeI-L43K. This difference in inhibition demonstrates that the L43K amino acid change sensitized NaeI to these drugs. Low concentrations of the intercalative drugs, except for ethidium bromide, enhance production of topoisomerase--DNA covalent intermediates but inhibited production of the NaeI-L43K--DNA covalent intermediate. These results imply some unique differences between DNA relaxation by NaeI-L43K and DNA topoisomerase. Concomitant with studying inhibition of the cleavage intermediate, NaeI-L43K was found to covalently bond with the 5' end of the cleaved DNA strand.