Endonuclease V, encoded by the nfi gene, initiates removal of the base analogs hypoxanthine and xanthine from DNA, acting to prevent mutagenesis from purine base deamination within the DNA. On the other hand, the RdgB nucleotide hydrolase in Escherichia coli is proposed to prevent hypoxanthine and xanthine incorporation into DNA by intercepting the noncanonical DNA precursors dITP and dXTP. Because many base analogs are mutagenic when incorporated into DNA, it is intuitive to think of RdgB as acting to prevent similar mutagenesis from deaminated purines in the DNA precursor pools. To test this idea, we used a set of Claire Cupples' strains to detect changes in spontaneous mutagenesis spectra, as well as in nitrous acid-induced mutagenesis spectra, in wild-type cells and in rdgB single, nfi single, and rdgB nfi double mutants. We found neither a significant increase in spontaneous mutagenesis in rdgB and nfi single mutants or the double mutant nor any changes in nitrous acid-induced mutagenesis for rdgB mutant strains. We conclude that incorporation of deaminated purines into DNA is nonmutagenic.Three of the four DNA bases-cytosine, adenine, and guanine-have amino groups. Deamination of these three bases ( Fig. 1) generates the base analogs uracil, hypoxanthine, and xanthine, which have pairing specificities different from the original bases. Therefore, the cell employs excision repair to prevent mutagenesis due to spontaneous DNA base deamination. For example, in Escherichia coli, uracil-DNA glycosylase encoded by the ung gene initiates excision of uracils from DNA (12, 30). The ung mutants experience a 30-fold increase in GC3AT transitions (13), owing to the deamination of cytosine to uracil in the DNA (31). Deamination of adenine to hypoxanthine in the DNA (24) is also known to cause mutations: hypoxanthine preferentially base pairs with cytosine (3,18,35,39,51), and its formation in DNA, for example, as a result of nitrous acid exposure, leads to AT3GC transitions (45). Hypoxanthine removal from DNA in E. coli is initiated by the product of the nfi gene, endonuclease V (Endo V) (53, 54), and, to a much lesser extent, by the product of the alkA gene, 3-methyladenine-DNA glycosylase (43,44). Although nfi mutants do not show increased spontaneous mutagenesis, they are more mutable by nitrous acid (45), an agent known to promote deamination of DNA bases (55).Bases can deaminate not only in DNA but in nucleotides as well, both chemically (32, 46) and enzymatically (56). Deamination of DNA precursors should lead to accumulation of noncanonical nucleoside triphosphates in the cell's DNA precursor pool. These noncanonical nucleotides, such as dITP, dXTP, and dUTP, can be incorporated into the newly synthesized DNA, albeit less efficiently than regular DNA precursors (3,38,42,51). Noncanonical DNA precursors are actively intercepted and removed from the DNA precursor pool. For example, dUTP is hydrolyzed to dUMP by deoxyuridine triphosphatase (2, 16), encoded by the dut gene (19). Indirect evidence (5; B. Budke and A....