Deamination of 5-methylcytosine residues in Mammalian cells

E V Gromenko; P V Spirin; E A Kubareva; E A Romanova; V S Prassolov; O V Shpanchenko; O A Dontsova

Deamination of 5-methylcytosine residues in Mammalian cells

Acta Naturae. 2009 Oct;1(3):121-4.

Authors

E V Gromenko¹, P V Spirin, E A Kubareva, E A Romanova, V S Prassolov, O V Shpanchenko, O A Dontsova

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University;

PMID: 22649624
PMCID: PMC3347525

Abstract

DNA demethylation in mammalia occurs after fertilization and during embryogenesis and accompanies cell aging and cancer transformation. With the help of the primer extension reaction, MALDI MS and DNA cleavage by thymine DNA glycosylase deamination of 5-methylcytosine residues has been shown to take place when the model methylated DNA duplexes are treated with nuclear extracts from the cell lines CHO, HeLa, and Skov3. The hypothesis that deamination of 5-methylcytosine is the first stage of demethylation in mammalia has been postulated.