Oligonucleotides with bistranded abasic sites interfere with substrate binding and catalysis by human apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease.

Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (AP endo) is a key enzyme in oxidative damage DNA repair. The enzyme, which repairs abasic sites, makes a single nick 5' to the phosphodeoxyribose, leaving a free 3'-hydroxyl. We recently described single turnover kinetics for human recombinant AP endo acting on an oligonucleotide with a single abasic site. We hypothesized that the structural changes induced by the presence of a second abasic site might provide insight into how AP endo recognizes the first abasic site. Here we performed steady state and single turnover experiments using bistranded abasic site substrates, with the second site located on the complementary strand to the one being followed and either opposite to the first or displaced in the 5' direction. All sites on the complementary strand were within half a helical turn of the first. The catalytic efficiency was reduced 80 to 96% and the Kd for substrate binding and dissociation was elevated 40- to 125-fold. The smaller changes occurred when the second site was opposite the first site or displaced by four nucleotides. In addition, if the second abasic site was directly across the helix or displaced by 1 or 3 nucleotides from the first abasic site, cleavage of the first abasic site was subject to apparent substrate inhibition, which did not occur if the second abasic site was displaced by four nucleotides from the first. While a substrate containing a nick without a phosphodeoxyribose on the contralateral strand abasic site did not inhibit nicking of the first strand, a substrate with a nicked abasic site on the contralateral strand was an even stronger inhibitor of enzyme action than an oligonucleotide containing the corresponding abasic site on each strand. Consequently, the inhibitory effect of the second abasic site is probably the result of prior cleavage of the abasic site on the contralateral strand with resulting distortions to the DNA helix that interfere with enzyme binding and/or cleavage.