Impact of DNA Adduct Size, Number, and Relative Position on the Toxicity of Aromatic Amines: A Molecular Dynamics Case Study of dG- and dG-Containing DNA Duplexes.

Human exposure to aromatic amines (AAs) can result in carcinogenic DNA adducts. To complement previous work geared toward understanding the mutagenicity of AA-derived adducts, which has almost exclusively studied (monoadducted) DNA containing a single lesion, the present work provides the first in-depth comparison of the structure of monoadducted and diadducted DNA duplexes. Specifically, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were initially performed on DNA containing the nonmutagenic single-ringed -(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-aniline (dG) or the mutagenic four-ringed -(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-1-aminopyrene (dG) lesion at G, G, or G in the AA deletion hotspot (5'-GGCGCC) in the or glycosidic orientation (B/S duplex conformation). Subsequently, diadducted strands were assessed that span each combination of damaged sites (GG (nearest neighbors), GG (next-nearest neighbors), and GG (two intervening nucleotides)) and / lesion glycosidic orientations. Despite other N-linked C8-dG adducts exhibiting sequence dependence conformational heterogeneity, a single dG or dG lesion induces helical conformational homogeneity that is exclusively controlled by aryl moiety size. However, the preferred damaged DNA conformation can change upon the addition of a second adduct depending on lesion separation, with neighboring lesions stabilizing a nonmutagenic conformation and next-nearest damaged sites stabilizing a promutagenic conformation regardless of adduct size. As a result, diadducted DNA is found to adopt conformations that are unfavored for the corresponding monoadducted system, pointing to differential replication and repair outcomes for diadducted DNA compared to those for monoadducted DNA. Thus, although the toxicity of monoadducted DNA is most significantly dictated by lesion size, the toxicity can increase or decrease upon a second damaging event depending on lesion size and relative position. Overall, our work adds the number of lesions and their spatial separation to the growing list of factors that determine the structure and biological outcomes of adducted DNA.