Ps. Kingma et al., Binding of etoposide to topoisomerase II in the absence of DNA: Decreased affinity as a mechanism of drug resistance, BIOCHEM, 38(12), 1999, pp. 3457-3461
Despite the prevalence of topoisomerase II-targeted drugs in cancer chemoth
erapy and the impact of drug resistance on the efficacy of treatment, inter
actions between these agents and topoisomerase II are not well understood.
Therefore, to further define interactions between anticancer drugs and the
type II enzyme, a nitrocellulose filter assay was used to characterize the
binding of etoposide to yeast topoisomerase II. Results indicate that etopo
side binds to the enzyme in the absence of DNA. The apparent K-d value for
the interaction was similar to 5 mu M drug. Etoposide also bound to ytop2H1
012Y, a mutant yeast type II enzyme that is similar to 3-4-fold resistant t
o etoposide. However, the apparent K-d value for the drug (similar to 16 mu
M) was similar to 3 times higher than that determined for wild-type topois
omerase II. Although it has been widely speculated that resistance to topoi
somerase II-targeted anticancer agents results from a decreased drug-enzyme
binding affinity, these data provide the first direct evidence in support
of this hypothesis. Finally, the ability of yeast topoisomerase II to bind
etoposide was dependent on the presence of the hydroxyl moiety of Tyr783, s
uggesting specific interactions between etoposide and the active site resid
ue that is involved in DNA scission.