Treatment of nonspecific DNA-protein contacts and application to the excision mechanism of a unique human DNA glycosylase

Abstract

This thesis concentrates on understanding how individual nonspecific DNA–protein contacts are used in the excision mechanism of the human DNA repair enzyme, alkyladenine DNA glycosylase (AAG). Initially, studies focus on understanding the structure and magnitude of these fundamentally different DNA–protein stacking and T-shaped interactions to be applied to the active site of AAG. High-level ab initio techniques revealed fundamental knowledge about the structure and magnitude of these distinctly different π+ and π contacts between (one or two) conjugated amino acid(s) and one nucleobase. Additionally, the mechanism used by AAG to excise (neutral and cationic) damaged nucleotides was investigated using a hybrid ONIOM approach. Reaction potential energy surfaces reveal that AAG prefers to excise both neutral and cationic substrates through a concerted mechanism, yet the nonspecific contacts present in the active site are only catalytic for the cleavage of the neutral substrates.