The Hyperthermophilic Euryarchaeon Archaeoglobus fulgidus Repairs Uracil by Single-Nucleotide Replacement

Hydrolytic deaminationof cytosine to uracilin cellular DNA is a major source of C-to-T transition mutations if uracilis not repaired by the DNA base excision repair(BER) pathway. Since deaminationincreases rapidly with temperature, hyperthermophiles, in particular, are expected to succumb to such damage. There has been only one report of crenarchaeotic BER showing strong similarities to that in most eukaryotes and bacteria for hyperthermophilic Archaea. Here we report a different type of BER performed by extract prepared from cells of the euryarchaeon Archaeoglobus fulgidus. Although immunodepletion showed that the monofunctional family 4 type of uracil-DNA glycosylase(UDG) is the principal and probably only UDG in this organism, a β-elimination mechanism rather than a hydrolytic mechanism is employed for incision of the abasic site following uracilremoval. The resulting 3' remnant is removed by efficient 3'-phosphodiesterase activity followed by single-nucleotide insertion and ligation. The finding that repair product formation is stimulated similarly by ATP and ADP in vitro raises the question of whether ADP is more important in vivo because of its higher heat stability.