A novel class of chemicals that react with abasic sites in DNA and specifically kill B cell cancers

A Germinal Center Checkpoint of AIRE in B Cells Limits Antibody Diversification

In response to antigens, B cells undergo affinity maturation and class switching mediated by activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) in germinal centers (GCs) of secondary lymphoid organs, but uncontrolled AID activity can precipitate autoimmunity and cancer. The regulation of GC antibody diversification is of fundamental importance but not well understood. We found that autoimmune regulator (AIRE), the molecule essential for T cell tolerance, is expressed in GC B cells in a CD40-dependent manner, interacts with AID and negatively regulates antibody affinity maturation and class switching by inhibiting AID function. AIRE deficiency in B cells caused altered antibody repertoire, increased somatic hypermutations, elevated autoantibodies to T helper 17 effector cytokines and defective control of skin Candida albicans. These results define a GC B cell checkpoint of humoral immunity and illuminate new approaches of generating high-affinity neutralizing antibodies for immunotherapy.

Ligands for Abasic Site-containing DNA and their Use as Fluorescent Probes

Apurinic and apyrimidinic sites, also referred to as abasic or AP sites, are residues of duplex DNA in which one DNA base is removed from a Watson-Crick base pair. They are formed during the enzymatic repair of DNA and offer binding sites for a variety of guest molecules. Specifically, the AP site may bind an appropriate ligand as a substitute for the missing nucleic base, thus stabilizing the abasic site-containing DNA (AP-DNA). Notably, ligands that bind selectively to abasic sites may be employed for analytical and therapeutical purposes. As a result, there is a search for structural features that establish a strong and selective association of a given ligand with the abasic position in DNA. Against this background, this review provides an overview of the different classes of ligands for abasic site-containing DNA (AP-DNA). This review covers covalently binding substrates, namely amine and oxyamine derivatives, as well as ligands that bind to AP-DNA by noncovalent association, as represented by small heterocyclic aromatic compounds, metal-organic complexes, macrocyclic cyclophanes, and intercalator-nucleobase conjugates. As the systematic development of fluorescent probes for AP-DNA has been somewhat neglected so far, this review article contains a survey of the available reports on the fluorimetric response of the ligand upon binding to the AP-DNA. Based on these data, this compilation shall present a perspective for future developments of fluorescent probes for AP-DNA.

Cleavage of Abasic Sites in DNA by an Aminoquinoxaline Compound: Augmented Cytotoxicity and DNA Damage in Combination with an Anticancer Drug Chlorambucil in Human Colorectal Carcinoma Cells

The elevated level of endogenous oxidative DNA damage and spontaneous deamination of DNA bases in cancer cells substantially increase the abasic sites in DNA via base excision repairs (BERs). Thus, the predominant BER pathway is a favorable target for cancer therapy. Interestingly, elevated levels of glutathione (GSH) in certain cancer cells, such as colon cancer, are associated with acquired resistance to several chemotherapeutic agents, which increase the difficulty for the treatment of cancer. Here, we have reported an ideal nitro group-containing monoquinoxaline DNA intercalator (1d), which is reduced into a fluorescent quinoxaline amine (1e) in the presence of GSH; concurrently, 1e (∼100 nM concentration) selectively causes the in vitro cleavage of abasic sites in DNA. 1e also binds to the tetrahydrofuran analogue of the abasic site in the nanomolar to low micromolar range depending on the nucleotide sequence opposite to the abasic site and also induces a structural change in abasic DNA. Furthermore, the amine compound (1e) augments the response of the specific bifunctional alkylating drug chlorambucil at a much lower concentration in the human colorectal carcinoma cell (HCT-116), and their combination shows a potential strategy for targeted therapy. Alone or in combination, 1d and 1e lead to a cascade of cellular events such as induction of DNA double-stranded breaks and cell arrest at G₀/G₁ and G₂/M phases, eventually leading to apoptotic cell death in HCT-116 cells. Hence, the outcome of this study provides a definitive approach that will help optimize the therapeutic applications for targeting the abasic site in cancer cells.

OUP accepted manuscript

Activation-induced deaminase (AID) is a DNA-cytosine deaminase that mediates maturation of antibodies through somatic hypermutation and class-switch recombination. While it causes mutations in immunoglobulin heavy and light chain genes and strand breaks in the switch regions of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene, it largely avoids causing such damage in the rest of the genome. To help understand targeting by human AID, we expressed it in repair-deficient Escherichia coli and mapped the created uracils in the genomic DNA using uracil pull-down and sequencing, UPD-seq. We found that both AID and the human APOBEC3A preferentially target tRNA genes and transcription start sites, but do not show preference for highly transcribed genes. Unlike A3A, AID did not show a strong replicative strand bias or a preference for hairpin loops. Overlapping uracilation peaks between these enzymes contained binding sites for a protein, FIS, that helps create topological domains in the E. coli genome. To confirm whether these findings were relevant to B cells, we examined mutations from lymphoma and leukemia genomes within AID-preferred sequences. These mutations also lacked replicative strand bias or a hairpin loop preference. We propose here a model for how AID avoids causing mutations in the single-stranded DNA found within replication forks.

Detection of Genomic Uracil Patterns

The appearance of uracil in the deoxyuridine moiety of DNA is among the most frequently occurring genomic modifications. Three different routes can result in genomic uracil, two of which do not require specific enzymes: spontaneous cytosine deamination due to the inherent chemical reactivity of living cells, and thymine-replacing incorporation upon nucleotide pool imbalances. There is also an enzymatic pathway of cytosine deamination with multiple DNA (cytosine) deaminases involved in this process. In order to describe potential roles of genomic uracil, it is of key importance to utilize efficient uracil-DNA detection methods. In this review, we provide a comprehensive and critical assessment of currently available uracil detection methods with special focus on genome-wide mapping solutions. Recent developments in PCR-based and in situ detection as well as the quantitation of genomic uracil are also discussed.

New insights into abasic site repair and tolerance

Thousands of apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP or abasic) sites form in each cell, each day. This simple DNA lesion can have profound consequences to cellular function, genome stability, and disease. As potent blocks to polymerases, they interfere with the reading and copying of the genome. Since they provide no coding information, they are potent sources of mutation. Due to their reactive chemistry, they are intermediates in the formation of lesions that are more challenging to repair including double-strand breaks, interstrand crosslinks, and DNA protein crosslinks. Given their prevalence and deleterious consequences, cells have multiple mechanisms of repairing and tolerating these lesions. While base excision repair of abasic sites in double-strand DNA has been studied for decades, new interest in abasic site processing has come from more recent insights into how they are processed in single-strand DNA. In this review, we discuss the source of abasic sites, their biological consequences, tolerance mechanisms, and how they are repaired in double and single-stranded DNA.

Genome-wide mapping of regions preferentially targeted by the human DNA-cytosine deaminase APOBEC3A using uracil-DNA pulldown and sequencing

Activation-induced deaminase (AID) and apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme catalytic subunit (APOBEC) enzymes convert cytosines to uracils, creating signature mutations that have been used to predict sites targeted by these enzymes. Mutation-based targeting maps are distorted by the error-prone or error-free repair of these uracils and by selection pressures. To directly map uracils created by AID/APOBEC enzymes, here we used uracil-DNA glycosylase and an alkoxyamine to covalently tag and sequence uracil-containing DNA fragments (UPD-Seq). We applied this technique to the genome of repair-defective, APOBEC3A-expressing bacterial cells and created a uracilation genome map, i.e. uracilome. The peak uracilated regions were in the 5'-ends of genes and operons mainly containing tRNA genes and a few protein-coding genes. We validated these findings through deep sequencing of pulldown regions and whole-genome sequencing of independent clones. The peaks were not correlated with high transcription rates or stable RNA:DNA hybrid formation. We defined the uracilation index (UI) as the frequency of occurrence of TT in UPD-Seq reads at different original TC dinucleotides. Genome-wide UI calculation confirmed that APOBEC3A modifies cytosines in the lagging-strand template during replication and in short hairpin loops. APOBEC3A's preference for tRNA genes was observed previously in yeast, and an analysis of human tumor sequences revealed that in tumors with a high percentage of APOBEC3 signature mutations, the frequency of tRNA gene mutations was much higher than in the rest of the genome. These results identify multiple causes underlying selection of cytosines by APOBEC3A for deamination, and demonstrate the utility of UPD-Seq.

A Tumor-Promoting Phorbol Ester Causes a Large Increase in APOBEC3A Expression and a Moderate Increase in APOBEC3B Expression in a Normal Human Keratinocyte Cell Line without Increasing Genomic Uracils

Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) promotes skin cancer in rodents. The mutations found in murine tumors are similar to those found in human skin cancers, and PMA promotes proliferation of human skin cells. PMA treatment of human keratinocytes increases the synthesis of APOBEC3A, an enzyme that converts cytosines in single-stranded DNA to uracil, and mutations in a variety of human cancers are attributed to APOBEC3A or APOBEC3B expression. We tested here the possibility that induction of APOBEC3A by PMA causes genomic accumulation of uracils that may lead to such mutations. When a human keratinocyte cell line was treated with PMA, both APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B gene expression increased, anti-APOBEC3A/APOBEC3B antibody bound a protein(s) in the nucleus, and nuclear extracts displayed cytosine deamination activity. Surprisingly, there was little increase in genomic uracils in PMA-treated wild-type or uracil repair-defective cells. In contrast, cells transfected with a plasmid expressing APOBEC3A acquired more genomic uracils. Unexpectedly, PMA treatment, but not APOBEC3A plasmid transfection, caused a cessation in cell growth. Hence, a reduction in single-stranded DNA at replication forks may explain the inability of PMA-induced APOBEC3A/APOBEC3B to increase genomic uracils. These results suggest that the proinflammatory PMA is unlikely to promote extensive APOBEC3A/APOBEC3B-mediated cytosine deaminations in human keratinocytes.