POLI
Encyclopedia
DNA polymerase iota is an enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 that in humans is encoded by the POLI gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

. It is found in higher eukaryotes, and is believed to have arisen from a gene duplication from Pol η
DNA polymerase eta
DNA polymerase eta is a eukaryotic DNA polymerase involved in the DNA repair by translesion synthesis. The gene encoding DNA polymerase eta is POLH, also known as XPV, because loss of this gene results in the disease Xeroderma Pigmentosum Variant...

. Pol ι, is a Y family polymerase that is involved in translesion synthesis. It can bypass 6-4 pyrimidine adducts and abasic sites and has a high frequency of wrong base incorporation. Like many other Y family polymerases Pol ι, has low processivity, a large DNA binding pocket and doesn't undergo conformational changes when DNA binds. These attributes are what allow Pol ι to carry out its task as a translesion polymerase. Pol ι only uses Hoogsteen base pairing, during DNA synthesis, it will add adenine
Adenine
Adenine is a nucleobase with a variety of roles in biochemistry including cellular respiration, in the form of both the energy-rich adenosine triphosphate and the cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and flavin adenine dinucleotide , and protein synthesis, as a chemical component of DNA...

 opposite to thymine
Thymine
Thymine is one of the four nucleobases in the nucleic acid of DNA that are represented by the letters G–C–A–T. The others are adenine, guanine, and cytosine. Thymine is also known as 5-methyluracil, a pyrimidine nucleobase. As the name suggests, thymine may be derived by methylation of uracil at...

 in the syn conformation and can add both cytosine
Cytosine
Cytosine is one of the four main bases found in DNA and RNA, along with adenine, guanine, and thymine . It is a pyrimidine derivative, with a heterocyclic aromatic ring and two substituents attached . The nucleoside of cytosine is cytidine...

 and thymine in the anti conformation across guanine
Guanine
Guanine is one of the four main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine . In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine. With the formula C5H5N5O, guanine is a derivative of purine, consisting of a fused pyrimidine-imidazole ring system with...

, which it flips to the syn conformation.

Further reading

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK