Cleavage of DNA containing 5-fluorocytosine or 5-fluorouracil by type II restriction endonucleases

  • Bioorg Med Chem. 2015 Nov 1;23(21):6885-90. doi: 10.1016/j.bmc.2015.09.051.
Agata Olszewska  1 ,  Jitka Dadová  1 ,  Michaela Mačková  1 ,  Michal Hocek  2
Affiliations
  • 1. Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Gilead Sciences & IOCB Research Center, Flemingovo nám. 2, CZ-16610 Prague 6, Czech Republic.
  • 2. Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Gilead Sciences & IOCB Research Center, Flemingovo nám. 2, CZ-16610 Prague 6, Czech Republic; Department of Organic and Nuclear Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Hlavova 8, CZ-12843 Prague 2, Czech Republic. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 26463367 DOI: 10.1016/j.bmc.2015.09.051
Abstract

A systematic study of the cleavage of DNA sequences containing 5-fluorocytosine or 5-fluorouracil by type II restriction endonucleases (REs) was performed and the results compared with the same sequences containing natural pyrimidine Bases, uracil or 5-methylcytosine. The results show that some REs recognize fluorine as a hydrogen on cytosine and cleave the corresponding sequences where the presence of m5dC leads to blocking of the cleavage. However, on uracil, the same REs recognize the F as a methyl surrogate and cleave the sequences which are not cleaved if uracil is incorporated instead of thymine. These results are interesting for understanding the recognition of DNA sequences by REs and for manipulation of the specific DNA cutting.

Keywords
DNA; DNA polymerase; Modified nucleotides; Pyrimidine nucleosides; Restriction endonucleases.
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