Effects of 2'-O-methyl nucleotide substitution on EcoRI endonuclease cleavage activities

To investigate the effect of sugar pucker conformation on DNA-protein interactions, we used 2'-O-methyl nucleotide (2'-OMeN) to modify the EcoRI recognition sequence -TGAATTCT-, and monitored the enzymatic cleavage process using FRET method. The 2'-O-methyl nucleotide has a C3'-endo sugar pucker conformation different from the C2'-endo sugar pucker conformation of native DNA nucleotides. The initial reaction velocities were measured and the kinetic parameters, Km and Vmax were derived using Michaelis-Menten equation. Experimental results showed that 2'-OMeN substitutions for the EcoRI recognition sequence decreased the cleavage efficiency for A2, A3 and T4 substitutions significantly, and 2'-OMeN substitution for T5 residue inhibited the enzymatic activity completely. In contrast, substitutions for G1 and C6 could maintain the original activity. 2'-fluoro nucleic acid (2'-FNA) and locked nucleic acid (LNA) having similar C3'-endo sugar pucker conformation also demonstrated similar enzymatic results. This position-dependent enzymatic cleavage property might be attributed to the phosphate backbone distortion caused by the switch from C2'-endo to C3'-endo sugar pucker conformation, and was interpreted on the basis of the DNA-EcoRI structure. These 2'-modified nucleotides could behave as a regulatory element to modulate the enzymatic activity in vitro, and this property will have potential applications in genetic engineering and biomedicine.