Antagonistic roles of canonical and Alternative-RPA in disease-associated tandem CAG repeat instability.

Expansions of repeat DNA tracts cause >70 diseases, and ongoing expansions in brains exacerbate disease. During expansion mutations, single-stranded DNAs (ssDNAs) form slipped-DNAs. We find the ssDNA-binding complexes canonical replication protein A (RPA1, RPA2, and RPA3) and Alternative-RPA (RPA1, RPA3, and primate-specific RPA4) are upregulated in Huntington disease and spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1) patient brains. Protein interactomes of RPA and Alt-RPA reveal unique and shared partners, including modifiers of CAG instability and disease presentation. RPA enhances in vitro melting, FAN1 excision, and repair of slipped-CAGs and protects against CAG expansions in human cells. RPA overexpression in SCA1 mouse brains ablates expansions, coincident with decreased ATXN1 aggregation, reduced brain DNA damage, improved neuron morphology, and rescued motor phenotypes. In contrast, Alt-RPA inhibits melting, FAN1 excision, and repair of slipped-CAGs and promotes CAG expansions. These findings suggest a functional interplay between the two RPAs where Alt-RPA may antagonistically offset RPA's suppression of disease-associated repeat expansions, which may extend to other DNA processes.

3,4-Dihydroxy- and 3,4-methylenedioxy- phenanthrene-type alkaloids with high selectivity for D2 dopamine receptor.

Dopamine-mediated neurotransmission plays an important role in relevant psychiatric and neurological disorders. Nowadays, there is an enormous interest in the development of new drugs acting at the dopamine receptors (DR) as potential new targets for the treatment of schizophrenia or Parkinson's disease. Previous studies have revealed that isoquinoline compounds such as tetrahydroisoquinolines (THIQs) can behave as selective D2 dopaminergic alkaloids. In the present study we have synthesized five aporphine compounds and five phenanthrene alkaloids and evaluated their potential dopaminergic activity. Binding studies on rat striatal membranes were used to evaluate their affinity and selectivity towards D1 and D2 DR. Phenanthrene type alkaloids, in particular the 3,4-dihydroxy- and 3,4-methylenedioxy derivatives, displayed high selectivity towards D2 DR. Therefore, they are potential candidates to be used in the treatment of schizophrenia (antagonists) or Parkinson's disease (agonists) due to their scarce D1 DR-associated side effects.

Absence of MutSß leads to the formation of slipped-DNA for CTG/CAG contractions at primate replication forks.

Typically disease-causing CAG/CTG repeats expand, but rare affected families can display high levels of contraction of the expanded repeat amongst offspring. Understanding instability is important since arresting expansions or enhancing contractions could be clinically beneficial. The MutSß mismatch repair complex is required for CAG/CTG expansions in mice and patients. Oddly, by unknown mechanisms MutSß-deficient mice incur contractions instead of expansions. Replication using CTG or CAG as the lagging strand template is known to cause contractions or expansions respectively; however, the interplay between replication and repair leading to this instability remains unclear. Towards understanding how repeat contractions may arise, we performed in vitro SV40-mediated replication of repeat-containing plasmids in the presence or absence of mismatch repair. Specifically, we separated repair from replication: Replication mediated by MutSß- and MutSα-deficient human cells or cell extracts produced slipped-DNA heteroduplexes in the contraction- but not expansion-biased replication direction. Replication in the presence of MutSß disfavoured the retention of replication products harbouring slipped-DNA heteroduplexes. Post-replication repair of slipped-DNAs by MutSß-proficient extracts eliminated slipped-DNAs. Thus, a MutSß-deficiency likely enhances repeat contractions because MutSß protects against contractions by repairing template strand slip-outs. Replication deficient in LigaseI or PCNA-interaction mutant LigaseI revealed slipped-DNA formation at lagging strands. Our results reveal that distinct mechanisms lead to expansions or contractions and support inhibition of MutSß as a therapeutic strategy to enhance the contraction of expanded repeats.