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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Author Spotlight: Advanced Single-Molecule Techniques for Investigating Telomeric Protein-DNA Interactions
Published on: August 30, 2024
Mechanism of extraordinary DNA digestion by pepsin
Yanfang Zhang1, Chunchuan Li1, Yu Liu1
1College of Food Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China.
Abstract:
Recently, the protein-specific enzyme pepsin was found be capable of digesting nucleic acids unexpectedly. In this study, the effects of DNA sequence specificity, purine content (AG content), depurination and length on the nucleic acid (NA) digestion by pepsin were investigated. The results showed that pepsin functioned similar as endonuclease, and presented a moderate sequence preference compared with restriction enzymes and non-specific nuclease. The digestion was specific (sequence dependent to some extent), and pepsin preferred to cleave purine-rich sequences. The digestion of favorable sequence was dramatically accelerated when the purine base at the cleavage site was removed (created an apurinic (AP) site). However, the AP site did not help to cleave the sequence that pepsin could not cleave originally. Moreover, the results indicated that pepsin preferred to digest longer DNA (e.g. > 59 bases) than shorter one, and sequence shorter than 30 bases was barely digested. The mechanism of DNA digestion by pepsin was also discussed.
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