L-Homoserylaminoethanol, a novel dipeptide alcohol inhibitor of eukaryotic DNA polymerase ε from a plant cultured cells, Nicotina tabacum L.

We found a novel inhibitor specific to eukaryotic DNA polymerase epsilon (pol epsilon) from plant cultured cells, Nicotina tabacum L. The compound (compound 1) was a dipeptide alcohol, L-homoserylaminoethanol. The 50% inhibition of pol epsilon activity by the compound was 43.6 mug/mL, and it had almost no effect on the activities of the other eukaryotic DNA polymerases such as alpha, beta, gamma and delta, prokaryotic DNA polymerases, nor DNA metabolic enzymes such as human telomerase, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase, T7 RNA polymerase, human DNA topoisomerase I and II, T4 polynucleotide kinase and bovine deoxyribonuclease I. Kinetic studies showed that inhibition of pol epsilon by the compound was non-competitive with respect to both template-primer DNA and nucleotide substrate. We succeeded in chemically synthesizing the stereoisomers, L-homoserylaminoethanol and D-homoserylaminoethanol, and found both were effective to the same extent. The IC50 values of L- and D-homoserylaminoethanols for pot epsilon were 42.0 and 41.5 mug/mL, respectively. This represents the second discovery of a pol epsilon-specific inhibitor, and the first report on a water-soluble peptide-like compound as the inhibitor, which is required in biochemical studies of pol epsilon. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.