Dynamics of a Benzo[a]pyrene-derived Guanine DNA Lesion in TGT and CGC Sequence Contexts: Enhanced Mobility in TGT Explains Conformational Heterogeneity, Flexible Bending, and Greater Susceptibility to Nucleotide Excision Repair

The nucleotide excision repair (NER) machinery excises a variety of bulky DNA lesions, but with varying efficiencies. The structural features of the DNA lesions that govern these differences are not well understood. An intriguing model system for studying structure–function relationships in NER is the major adduct derived from the reaction of the highly tumorigenic metabolite of benzo[a]pyrene, (+)-anti-benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide, with the exocyclic amino group of guanine ((+)-trans-anti-[BP]-N2-dG, or G*). The rates of incision of the stereochemically identical lesions catalyzed by the prokaryotic UvrABC system was shown to be greater by a factor of 2.3 ± 0.3 in the TG*T than in the CG*C sequence context [Biochemistry 46 (2007) 7006–7015]. Here we employ molecular dynamics simulations to elucidate the origin of the greater excision efficiency in the TG*T case and, more broadly, to delineate structural parameters that enhance NER. Our results show that the BP aromatic ring system is 5′-directed along the modified strand in the B-DNA minor groove in both sequence contexts. However, the TG*T modified duplex is much more dynamically flexible, featuring more perturbed and mobile Watson–Crick hydrogen bonding adjacent to the lesion, a greater impairment in stacking interactions, more dynamic local roll/bending, and more minor groove flexibility. These characteristics explain a number of experimental observations concerning the (+)-trans-anti-[BP]-N2-dG adduct in double-stranded DNA with the TG*T sequence context: its conformational heterogeneity in NMR solution studies, its highly flexible bend, and its lower thermal stability. By contrast, the CG*C modified duplex is characterized by a single BP conformation and a rigid bend. While current recognition models of bulky lesions by NER factors have stressed the importance of impaired Watson–Crick pairing/stacking and bending, our results highlight the likelihood of an important role for the local dynamics in the vicinity of the lesion.