Identification of Escherichia coli 8-oxoguanine endonuclease

7,8-Dihydro-8-oxoguanine (oh8Gua) endonuclease is a DNA repair enzyme in Escherichia coli to remove oh8Gua, a promutagenic DNA adduct. Due to the unique mode of enzyme action and substrate specificity, this DNA repair enzyme has been suggested to be identical to 2,6-diamino-4-hydroxyformamidopyrimidine (Fapy)-DNA glycosylase (Fpg). However, oh8Gua endonuclease had not been definitely identified because it had not been homogeneously purified. In this study, we attempted to purify and identify the enzyme. Through several purification procedures, we obtained two proteins (32 kD and 29 kD). The larger protein co-migrated with Fpg in 12% SDS-PAGE gel. Sequences of N-terminal amino acids of these two proteins were identical to that of Fpg; the smaller one is a degraded product of oh8Gua endonuclease during purification steps. These results indicate that oh8Gua endonuclease is identical to Fpg, implying that oh8Gua in oxidatively damaged DNA rather than Fapy is more physiologically relevant substrate for Fpg.