P. Neddermann et al., CLONING AND EXPRESSION OF HUMAN G T MISMATCH-SPECIFIC THYMINE-DNA GLYCOSYLASE/, The Journal of biological chemistry, 271(22), 1996, pp. 12767-12774
Hydrolytic deamination of 5-methylcytosine leads to the formation of G
/T mismatches. We have shown previously that these G/T mispairs are co
rrected to G/C pairs by a mismatch-specific thymine-DNA glycosylase, T
DG, which we subsequently purified from human cells. Here we describe
the cloning of the human cDNA encoding TDG. We have identified two dis
tinct cDNA species that differ by 100 nucleotides at the 3'-untranslat
ed region. These cDNAs contain a 410-amino acid open reading frame tha
t encodes a 46-kDa polypeptide. The G/T glycosylase, expressed both in
vitro and in Escherichia coli, migrated in denaturing polyacrylamide
gels with an apparent size of 60 kDa. The substrate specificity of the
recombinant protein corresponded to that of the cellular enzyme, and
polyclonal antisera raised against the recombinant protein neutralized
both activities. We therefore conclude that the cDNA described below
encodes human TDG. Data base searches identified a serendipitously clo
ned mouse cDNA sequence that could be shown to encode the murine TDG h
omologue. No common amino acid sequence motifs between the G/T-specifi
c enzyme and other DNA glycosylases could be found, suggesting that TD
G belongs to a new class of base-excision repair enzymes.