Adriamycin and daunorubicin inhibition of mutant T4 DNA polymerases.

The anticancer drugs, adriamycin and daunorubicin, as well as two other DNA reagents, ethidium bromide and 9-aminoacridine, all exert a differential inhibitory effect on nucleotide incorporation for purified DNA polymerases induced by mutant and wild-type bacteriophage T4. When compared with DNA polymerase of wild-type phage, antimutator enzymes are inhibited to a far greater extent and mutator enzymes to a lesser extent. In contrast, the polymerase-associated 3'-exonuclease activities of wild type and mutants are also inhibited by the compounds but nondifferentially.