3-Nitrobenzanthrone (3-NBA), an environmental mutagen found in diesel exhaust and a suspected carcinogen, undergoes metabolic reduction followed by reaction with DNA to form aminobenzanthrone (ABA) adducts, with the major alkylation product being N-(2′-deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-3-aminobenzanthrone (C8-dG-ABA). Site-specific synthesis of the C8-dG-ABA adduct in the oligodeoxynucleotide 5'-d(GTGCXTGTTTGT)-3':5'-d(ACAAACACGCAC)-3'; X = C8-dG-ABA adduct, including codons 272-275 of the p53 gene, has allowed for investigation into the structural and thermodynamic properties of this adduct. The conformation of the C8-dG-ABA adduct was determined using NMR spectroscopy and was refined using molecular dynamics (MD) calculations restrained by experimentally determined interproton distance restraints obtained from NOE experiments. The refined structure revealed that the C8-dG-ABA adduct formed a base-displaced intercalated conformation. The adducted guanine was shifted into the syn conformation about the glycosidic bond. The 5'- and 3'-neighboring base pairs remained intact. While this facilitated π-stacking interactions between the ABA moiety and neighboring bases, the thermal melting temperature (Tm) of the adduct-containing duplex showed a decrease of 11 °C as compared to the corresponding unmodified oligodeoxynucleotide duplex. Overall, in this sequence, the base-displaced intercalated conformation of the C8-dG-ABA lesion bears similarity to structures of other arylamine C8-dG adducts. However, in this sequence, the base-displaced intercalated conformation for the C8-dG-ABA adduct differs from the conformation of the N2-dG-ABA adduct reported by de los Santos and co-workers, which oriented in the minor groove towards the 5' end of the duplex, with the modified guanine remaining in the anti conformation about the glyosidic torsion angle, and the complementary base remaining within the duplex. The results are discussed in relationship to differences between the C8-dG-ABA and N2-dG-ABA adducts with respect to susceptibility to nucleotide excision repair (NER).

The environmental pollutant 3‐nitrobenzanthrone produces bulky aminobenzanthrone (ABA) DNA adducts with both guanine and adenine nucleobases. A major product occurs at the C8 position of guanine (C8‐dG‐ABA). These adducts present a strong block to replicative polymerases but, remarkably, can be bypassed in a largely error‐free manner by the human Y‐family polymerase η (hPol η). Here, we report the crystal structure of a ternary Pol⋅DNA⋅dCTP complex between a C8‐dG‐ABA‐containing template:primer duplex and hPol η. The complex was captured at the insertion stage and provides crucial insight into the mechanism of error‐free bypass of this bulky lesion. Specifically, bypass involves accommodation of the ABA moiety inside a hydrophobic cleft to the side of the enzyme active site and formation of an intra‐nucleotide hydrogen bond between the phosphate and ABA amino moiety, allowing the adducted guanine to form a standard Watson–Crick pair with the incoming dCTP.

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