PARENT SESSION

Chemistry and Biology of Deoxyribose Oxidation

(SY063) Chemical approaches to defining the biological consequences of radical-mediated deoxyribose oxidation in DNA.

Dedon, Peter^*,1, ¹ Biological Engineering Division, Cambridge, MA, USA

ABSTRACT- Deoxyribose oxidation is emerging as a biologically important form of DNA damage, with far greater complexity than the traditional perception of strand breaks as simple interruptions of the backbone. Oxidation of each position in the sugar gives rise to a unique spectrum of degradation products, many of which are highly electrophilic and thus reactive with nucleophilic sites in proteins and nucleic acids to form cross-links and DNA adducts. This presentation will address our recent efforts to develop sensitive analytical methods to quantify deoxyribose oxidation products in cells, including abasic sites and sugar fragments, and to understand the relationship between the chemistry of deoxyribose oxidation and the biological responses to oxidative stress and radical-mediated DNA damage.

Key words: deoxyribose oxidation, DNA damage, radical-induced damage, DNA and protein adducts