Oxidized RNA precursors formed in the nucleotide pool may be incorporated into RNA. In this study, the incorporation of is one of the most abundant ([5] and references therein). The highly reactive hydroxy radical and guanine-selective singlet oxygen are thought to be involved in the formation of 8-OH-Gua [6]. 8-OH-Gua can pair with both cytosine and adenine [7][8][9][10]. The oxidized nucleobase in DNA seems to be an important source of mutations, and it induces G:CT:A transversions in living cells [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. The oxidation of dGTP in the nucleotide pool by reactive oxygen species is another significant source in the mutation process. 8-Hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine 5'-triphosphate In this study, we analyzed the incorporation of 8-OH-GTP by the E. coli and human RNA pols in vitro. We found that the oxidized ribonucleotide was incorporated into RNA opposite C and A in the template DNA. This result suggests that 8-OH-GTP is incorporated into RNA, resulting in transcriptional and translational errors. In contrast,another oxidized ribonucleotide, 2-hydroxyadenosine 5'-triphosphate (2-OH-ATP) [29], was incorporated "correctly" opposite T.
Materials and methods
Materials
6E. coli RNA polymerase was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St.Louis, MO, USA). Human RNA pol II was purified from HeLa cells expressing Flag-and His-tagged human Rpb3 (the third subunit of RNA pol II), as described previously [32]. Ribonuclease inhibitor was from Takara (Kusatsu, Japan). 8-OH-GTP and 2-OH-ATP were prepared by the oxidation of GTP and ATP, respectively, as described previously [29]. The purities of the 8-OH-GTP and 2-OH-ATP were both estimated to be more than 99%, as determined by an HPLC analysis (data not shown). The unmodified ribonucleoside 5'-triphosphates were from GE HealthcareBio-Sciences (Piscataway, NJ, USA). The Alexa Fluor 647 (Alexa 647)-modified oligoribonucleotide and the unmodified oligodeoxyribonucleotides (Table 1) were purchased from Japan Bio Services (Asaka, Japan) and Invitrogen Japan (Tokyo, Japan), respectively, in purified forms.
In vitro RNA synthesisAn RNA primer-extension assay, in which the elongation complexes were assembled on nucleic acid scaffolds [33][34][35][36][37][38] Hepes-NaOH (pH 7.9), 5 mM MgCl 2 , 0.5 mM EDTA, 0.5 mM dithiothreitol, 0.5 U/µl ribonuclease inhibitor, 500 µM NTP and the enzyme at 30°C. In both reactions, the RNA/DNA hybrid was incubated with RNA pol for 5 min to assemble the elongation complex (preincubation), and then the substrate ribonucleotide was added to start the reactions.Reactions were stopped by the addition of a two-fold volume of termination solution (90% formamide, 50 mM EDTA). Samples were heated at 98°C for 5 min and chilled on ice, and were then applied to an 8 M urea, 20% polyacrylamide gel. Fluorograms were obtained with a Ε. coli RNA pol were carried out at 37°C for two to ten min.
Results
Incorporation of 8-OH-GTP by E. coli RNA polymeraseTo monitor nucleotide incorporation, we utilized a primer-extension assay, in which the elon...