Sequence context effect on strand slippage in natural DNA primer-templates.
Strand slippage has been found to occur in primer-templates containing a templating thymine, cytosine, and guanine, leading to the formation of misaligned structures with a single-nucleotide bulge. If remained in the active site of low-fidelity polymerases during DNA replication, these misaligned structures can ultimately bring about deletion mutations. In this study, we performed NMR investigations on primer-template models containing a templating adenine. Similar to our previous results on guanine, adenine templates are also less prone to strand slippage than pyrimidine templates. Misalignment occurs only in primer-templates that form a terminal C·G or G·C base pair. Together with our previous findings on thymine, cytosine, and guanine templates, the present study reveals strand slippage can occur in any kind of natural templating bases during DNA replication, providing insights into the origin of mutation hotspots in natural DNA sequences. In addition to the type of incoming base upon misincorporation, the propensity of strand slippage in primer-templates depends also on the type of templating base, its upstream and downstream bases.
Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
Lai Man
LM
Chi
Sik Lok
SL
Lam
D020029:Base Pairing; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D004261:DNA Replication; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D009154:Mutation; D011743:Pyrimidines / Q000737:chemistry
D017931:DNA Primers; D011743:Pyrimidines; D004247:DNA; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase; C030986:pyrimidine