The effectiveness of in vitro primer elongation reactions catalyzed by human bypass DNA polymerases (hDinB1), pol (hRad30A), pol (hRad30B), and yeast pol (Rev3 and Rev7) in site-specifically modified template oligonucleotide strands were studied in vitro. The templates contained single bulky lesions derived from the trans-addition of the mutagenic (؉)-or (؊)-enantiomers of r7,t8-dihydroxy-t9,10-epoxy-7,8,9,10-tetrahydrobenzo[a]pyrene (a metabolite of the environmental carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene), to the exocyclic amino groups of guanine or adenine in oligonucleotide templates 33, or more, bases long. In "running start" primer extension reactions, pol effectively bypassed both the stereoisomeric (؉)-and (؊)-trans-guanine adducts but not the analogous adenine adducts. In sharp contrast, pol , which exhibits considerable sequence homology with pol (both belong to the group of Y family polymerases), is partially blocked by the guanine adducts and the (؊)-trans-adenine adduct, although the stereoisomeric (؉)-trans-adenine adduct is more successfully bypassed. Neither pol nor pol , either alone or in combination, were effective in trans-lesion synthesis past the same adducts. In all cases, the fidelity of insertion is dependent on adduct stereochemistry and structure. Generally, error-free nucleotide insertion opposite the lesions tends to depend more on adduct stereochemistry than error-prone insertion. None of the polymerases tested are a universal bypass polymerase for the stereoisomeric bulky polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts derived from anti-BPDE.Several new prokaryotic and eukaryotic DNA polymerases (pol) 1 involved in trans-lesional synthesis have been recently identified (reviewed in Refs. 1-5). The functional characteristics of the UmuC/DinB/Rev1p/Rad30 DNA polymerases belonging to the Y family of DNA polymerases (5) have been extensively investigated (6 -11). These polymerases are able to bypass a variety of DNA lesions in vitro (8,(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) that are known to block replication catalyzed by "classical" polymerases such as pol ␣, pol , phage T7, the Klenow fragment of pol I from Escherichia coli, and human immunodeficiency virusreverse transcriptase, etc. (see Refs. 21-18 for example).The efficiencies and fidelities of trans-lesion synthesis catalyzed by Y family polymerases vary significantly among the different subfamilies and also depend remarkably on the type of DNA damage. Purified human pol (DinB1, 870 amino acids in size) efficiently bypasses (Ϫ)-trans-[BP]-N 2 -dG adducts (bulky lesions derived from the binding of the mutagen r7,t8-dihydroxy-t9,10-epoxy-7,8,9,10-tetrahydrobenzo[a]pyrene ((ϩ)-or (Ϫ)-anti-BPDE) to the exocyclic amino groups of guanine and adenine residues in DNA (Scheme 1) with the insertion of a C opposite the lesion (12). A truncated form of pol , a 560-amino acid form pol (⌬C), missing motifs VIIa and VIIb and obtained from a baculovirus expression system, also bypasses the (ϩ)-
trans-[BP]-N2 -dG adduct (29). Human pol also bypasses 8-oxo-dG lesio...