Characterization of Fluorescent Base Analogs to Study DNA Base Flipping at the Single Molecule Level

Abstract

Chemical damage to DNA bases can result in mutations, block replication, and lead to cancer. It has been suggested that the phenomenon of base flipping take place by some enzymes during the repair of DNA damages. However, it still remains to be answered if the enzyme “pushes” the nucleotide out of the helix (active mechanism) or if the enzyme binds to a provisional flipped base (passive mechanism). Single molecule fluorescence has demonstrated to be a powerful technique to determine the formation of one or more intermediates, and to study the kinetics of the processes from the instant before an enzyme interact with the DNA until the release of the enzymatic product, one molecule at a time. Therefore, in order to optimize and maximize the repair of damaged DNA, new single molecule approaches to fully assess the kinetic mechanism of the base flipping process are needed. In previous work, the adenine fluorescent base analog 2-aminopurine (2AP) has been extensively used to study base flipping in ensemble average experiments. In addition, a novel 2AP single molecule approach was recently developed.1 In order to generate single molecule fluorescence assays to probe base flipping in different DNA-enzyme complexes, we need to study fluorescent base analogs (FBA) for all the natural bases. Several FBA molecules have been synthesized during the last four decades and we have selected one FBA molecule for each DNA base to probe base flipping. We have characterized the fluorescent properties of different FBA-substituted DNA molecules that mimic the different states proposed for the base flipping process. 1.Alemán, E.A., Patrick, E., de Silva, C., Musier-Forsyth, K. & Rueda, D. Single-molecule dynamics with fluorescent nucleotide analogues. In preparationto be submitted