International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Jan 2023)

The Intertwined Role of 8-oxodG and G4 in Transcription Regulation

  • Francesca Gorini,
  • Susanna Ambrosio,
  • Luigi Lania,
  • Barbara Majello,
  • Stefano Amente

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24032031
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 3
p. 2031

Abstract

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The guanine base in nucleic acids is, among the other bases, the most susceptible to being converted into 8-Oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) when exposed to reactive oxygen species. In double-helix DNA, 8-oxodG can pair with adenine; hence, it may cause a G > T (C > A) mutation; it is frequently referred to as a form of DNA damage and promptly corrected by DNA repair mechanisms. Moreover, 8-oxodG has recently been redefined as an epigenetic factor that impacts transcriptional regulatory elements and other epigenetic modifications. It has been proposed that 8-oxodG exerts epigenetic control through interplay with the G-quadruplex (G4), a non-canonical DNA structure, in transcription regulatory regions. In this review, we focused on the epigenetic roles of 8-oxodG and the G4 and explored their interplay at the genomic level.

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