Regulation of WRN helicase activity in human base excision repair

Werner syndrome patients are deficient in the Werner protein (WRN), which is a multifunctional nuclear protein possessing 3'-5' exonuclease and ATP-dependent helicase activities. Studies of Werner syndrome cells and biochemical studies of WRN suggest that WRN plays a role in several DNA metabolic pathways. WRN interacts with DNA polymerase beta (pol beta) and stimulates pol beta strand displacement synthesis on a base excision repair (BER) intermediate in a helicase-dependent manner. In this report, we examined the effect of the major human apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (APE1) and of pol beta on WRN helicase activity. The results show that WRN alone is able to unwind several single strand break BER intermediates. However, APE1 inhibits WRN helicase activity on these intermediates. This inhibition is likely due to the binding of APE1 to nicked apurinic/apyrimidinic sites, suggesting that APE1 prevents the promiscuous unwinding of BER intermediates. This inhibitory effect was relieved by the presence of pol beta. A model involving the pol beta-mediated hand-off of WRN protein is proposed based on these results.