Hansen, M., Yun, S., & Hurley, L. (1995). Hedamycin intercalates the DNA helix and, through carbohydrate-mediated recognition in the minor groove, directs N7-alkylation of guanine in the major groove in a sequence-specific manner. Chemistry and Biology, 2(4), 229-240.
PMID: 9383425;Abstract:
Background: The pluramycins are a class of antitumor antibiotics that exert their biological activity through interaction with DNA. Recent studies with the analog altromycin B have determined that these agents intercalate into the DNA molecule, position carbohydrate substituents into both major and minor grooves, and alkylate the DNA molecule by epoxide-mediated electrophilic attack on N7 of guanine located to the 3′ side of the drug molecule. Alkylation is sequence dependent and appears to be modulated by glycoside substituents attached at the corners of a planar chromophore. The altromycin B-like analogs preferentially alkylate 5′AG sequences; hedamycin-like analogs prefer 5′TG and 5′CG sequences. Although the mechanism of guanine modification by altromycin B has been extensively studied, the mechanism of action of hedamycin has not been previously determined. Results: Using high-field NMR, we have shown that hedamycin stacks to the 5′ side of the guanine nucleotide at the site of intercalation in a DNA decamer, positioning both aminosaccharides into the minor groove to direct alkylation by the epoxide moiety on N7 of guanine.The C10 linked N,N-dimethylvancosamine sugar moiety interacts to the 5′ side of the intercalation site, while the C8 linked anglosamine moiety interacts to the 3′ side.The binding interactions of the two aminosugars steer the C2 double epoxide located in the major groove into the proximity of N7 of guanine. Unexpectedly, it is not the first epoxide that undergoes electrophilic addition to N7 of guanine, which would correspond to altromycin B, but the second, terminal epoxide. Conclusions: We have used two-dimensional NMR to elucidate the sequence-selective recognition of DNA by hedamycin and the mechanism of covalent modification of guanine by this antibiotic. Characterization of the intermolecular interactions between both hedamycin and altromycin B and their targeted DNA sequences has yielded a better understanding of the reasons for variations in sequence selectivity and alkylation reactivity among the pluramycin compounds.
Sun, D., Hurley, L. H., & D., D. (1998). Telomerase assay using biotinylated-primer extension and magnetic separation of the products. BioTechniques, 25(6), 1046-1051.
PMID: 9863060;Abstract:
Human telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein enzyme, is known to be associated with immortalized cancer cells but is absent in most normal tissues. Thus, telomerase appears to be an attractive new target for anticancer agents and an important diagnostic marker of human cancers. Here, we describe an improved telomerase assay method based on the Dynabead® biomagnetic separation theory. In this method, 5'-biotinylated (TTAGGG)3 was used as a primer for the telomerase reaction. Telomerase reaction products were then immobilized on streptavidin-coated Dynabeads and washed intensively to eliminate excess [α32P]dGTP. Using this method, without the amplification of telomerase reaction products by the PCR, we were able to quantitatively detect telomerase activity in human HeLa cell extracts equivalent to between 200-500 cells. This method is anticipated to be useful for the measurement of telomerase activity in various tumor cells, for assessing potential telomerase and for understanding the biochemical aspects of the telomerase reaction.
Hurley, L. H., & Petrusek, R. (1979). Proposed structure of the anthramycin-DNA adduct. Nature, 282(5738), 529-531.
Hurley, L. H., & Bialek, D. (1974). Regulation of antibiotic production: catabolite inhibition and the dualistic effect of glucose on indolmycin production. Journal of Antibiotics, 27(1), 49-56.
Hurley, L., Qin, Y., Fortin, J. S., Tye, D., Gleason-Guzman, M., Brooks, T. A., & Hurley, L. -. (2010). Molecular cloning of the human platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFR-beta) promoter and drug targeting of the G-quadruplex-forming region to repress PDGFR-beta expression. Biochemistry, 49(19).
To understand the mechanisms controlling platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFR-beta) expression in malignancies, we have cloned and characterized the first functional promoter of the human PDGFR-beta gene, which has been confirmed by luciferase reporter gene assays. The transcription initiation sites were mapped by primer extension. Promoter deletion experiments demonstrate that the proximal, highly GC-rich region (positions -165 to -139) of the human PDGFR-beta promoter is crucial for basal promoter activity. This region is sensitive to S1 nuclease and likely to assume a non-B-form DNA secondary structure within the supercoiled plasmid. The G-rich strand in this region contains a series of runs of three or more guanines that can form multiple different G-quadruplex structures, which have been subsequently assessed by circular dichroism. A Taq polymerase stop assay has shown that three different G-quadruplex-interactive drugs can each selectively stabilize different G-quadruplex structures of the human PDGFR-beta promoter. However, in transfection experiments, only telomestatin significantly reduced the human PDGFR-beta basal promoter activity relative to the control. Furthermore, the PDGFR-beta mRNA level in Daoy cells was significantly decreased after treatment with 1 muM telomestatin for 24 h. Therefore, we propose that ligand-mediated stabilization of specific G-quadruplex structures in the human PDGFR-beta promoter can modulate its transcription.
