Keyarash Sadeghian, Marco Bocola, Thomas Merz, Martin Schütz
Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraβe 31, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany.
Journal of the American Chemical Society 2010 Nov 17UV irradiation of DNA can lead to the formation of mutagenic (6-4) pyrimidine-pyrimidone photolesions. The (6-4) photolyases are the enzymes responsible for the photoinduced repair of such lesions. On the basis of the recently published crystal structure of the (6-4) photolyase bound to DNA [Maul et al. 2008] and employing quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics techniques, a repair mechanism is proposed, which involves two photoexcitations. The flavin chromophore, initially being in its reduced anionic form, is photoexcited and donates an electron to the (6-4) form of the photolesion. The photolesion is then protonated by the neighboring histidine residue and forms a radical intermediate. The latter undergoes a series of energy stabilizing hydrogen-bonding rearrangements before the electron back transfer to the flavin semiquinone. The resulting structure corresponds to the oxetane intermediate, long thought to be formed upon DNA-enzyme binding. A second photoexcitation of the flavin promotes another electron transfer to the oxetane. Proton donation from the same histidine residue allows for the splitting of the four-membered ring, hence opening an efficient pathway to the final repaired form. The repair of the lesion by a single photoexcitation was shown not to be feasible.
Keyarash Sadeghian, Marco Bocola, Thomas Merz, Martin Schütz. Theoretical study on the repair mechanism of the (6-4) photolesion by the (6-4) photolyase. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2010 Nov 17;132(45):16285-95
PMID: 20977236
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