The influence of the phosphorothioate diester bond on the DNA oxidation process

Abstract

Abstract This study describes the influence of the phosphorothioate internucleotide bond on the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) oxidation process. The interaction of an ultraviolet radiation (UVA) with a targeted double-stranded (ds) oligonucleotide, in which one strand contains an antraquinone (AQ) moiety on the 5’-end, may lead to a hole migration process through the double helix. In the end, the migration of theformed radical cation terminates in a suitable place. Usually, this is a guanine-rich sequence. In another experiment, phosphorothioate internucleotide bonds were detected in the bacterial genome as a natural modification. In this study, a polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) autoradiogram analysis of irradiated ds-DNA showed that the oxidation reaction was not inhibited by an isolated guanine. Instead, irrespective of the absence or presence of a phosphorothioate bond, the termination of the ds-DNA oxidation process was predominantly observed on the thymine moieties. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that in the discussed case, a hole migration by a hopping mechanism is in competition with an oxidation reaction with a superoxide radical anion. Alternatively, the radical cation migration process is sequence-dependent due to its different ionization potentials. Therefore, the presence of a phosphorothioate internucleotide bond did not change the stability of ds-DNA under UVA irradiation conditions.