Mitochondrial Single-stranded DNA-binding Proteins Stimulate the Activity of DNA Polymerase γ by Organization of the Template DNA

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-27-2015

Subject Area

Animals; DNA Polymerase gamma; DNA, Single-Stranded (genetics, metabolism); DNA-Binding Proteins (genetics, metabolism); DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase (genetics, metabolism); Drosophila Proteins (genetics, metabolism); Drosophila melanogaster; Humans; Mitochondrial Proteins (genetics, metabolism)

Abstract

The activity of the mitochondrial replicase, DNA polymerase γ (Pol γ) is stimulated by another key component of the mitochondrial replisome, the mitochondrial single-stranded DNA-binding protein (mtSSB). We have performed a comparative analysis of the human and Drosophila Pols γ with their cognate mtSSBs, evaluating their functional relationships using a combined approach of biochemical assays and electron microscopy. We found that increasing concentrations of both mtSSBs led to the elimination of template secondary structure and gradual opening of the template DNA, through a series of visually similar template species. The stimulatory effect of mtSSB on Pol γ on these ssDNA templates is not species-specific. We observed that human mtSSB can be substituted by its Drosophila homologue, and vice versa, finding that a lower concentration of insect mtSSB promotes efficient stimulation of either Pol. Notably, distinct phases of the stimulation by both mtSSBs are distinguishable, and they are characterized by a similar organization of the template DNA for both Pols γ. We conclude that organization of the template DNA is the major factor contributing to the stimulation of Pol γ activity. Additionally, we observed that human Pol γ preferentially utilizes compacted templates, whereas the insect enzyme achieves its maximal activity on open templates, emphasizing the relative importance of template DNA organization in modulating Pol γ activity and the variation among systems.

Publication Title

The Journal of biological chemistry

Volume

290

Issue

48

First Page

28697

Last Page

707

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1074/jbc.M115.673707

PubMed ID

26446790

E-ISSN

1083-351X

Language

eng

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