Abstract 685: Structural study of the 3'-end G-quadruplex formed in the human PDGFR-β promoter: Insight into a transcriptional inhibitor element
Authors: Onel Buket , Lin Clement , Yang Danzhou 
Published: August 2018

Aberrant expression of PDGFR-β promotes multiple hallmarks of cancer, and its transcriptional regulation provides an attractive means to inhibit the PDGFR-β signaling pathway. The human PDGFR-β promoter nuclease hypersensitive element (NHE) can form multiple G-quadruplexes. While the most stable G-quadruplex formed in the human PDGFR-β promoter NHE region is the 5'-mid G-quadruplex, the 3'-end sequence that contains a 3'-GGA run forms a less stable G-quadruplex. Interestingly, the G-quadruplex formed in the 3'-end region of the NHE is recently found to be a transcriptional repressor of PDGFR-β, and a small molecule ellipticine, GSA1129, is shown to selectively stabilize the 3'-end G-quadruplex and repress PDGFR-β activity in cancer cell lines and in a preclinical animal model. Therefore, understanding the molecular structure of the 3'-end G-quadruplex is important for small molecule targeting in PDGFR-β gene regulation. Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, we found that the 3'-end G-quadruplex formed in the extended PDGFR-β NHE 3'-end sequence consists of two novel intramolecular end-insertion G-quadruplexes, one with a 3'-non-adjacent flanking guanine inserted into the 3'-external tetrad (3'-insertion-G4), and another with a 5'-non-adjacent flanking guanine inserted into the 5'-external tetrad (5'-insertion-G4), respectively. The two guanines in the GGA-run move up or down within the G-quadruplex to accommodate the inserted guanine. The two end-insertion G-quadruplexes co-exist in equilibrium under physiological salt conditions. In the 3'-insertion-G4, the 3' non-adjacent guanine G20 is involved in the formation of the 3'-external G-tetrad, with the two guanines from the GGA-run involved in the formation of the 5'-external and middle G-tetrads, thereby inducing the formation of a bulge loop structure from the 3'-flanking strand. In the 5'-insertion-G4, the 5'-non-adjacent flanking guanine G0 is involved in the formation of the 5'-external G-tetrad, with the two guanines from the GGA-run involved in the formation of the middle and 3'-external G-tetrads, thereby inducing the formation of a lateral loop from the 5'-flanking residues on top of the 5'-external tetrad. The loop interactions and capping structures of the two end-insertion G-quadruplexes appear to be different. For the 3'-insertion-G4, only the 5'-flanking bases stabilize the structure. For the 5'-insertion-G4, the flanking residues at both the 5'- and 3'-ends stabilize the structure, and a favorable capping structure appears to be adopted by the 5'-lateral loop. Significantly, the formation of two equilibrating end-insertion G-quadruplexes appears to depend on the GGA-run and the guanine-containing flanking sequences. The unique end-insertion structures and capping conformations may provide a specific platform for small molecule targeting.

Citation Format: Buket Onel, Clement Lin, Danzhou Yang. Structural study of the 3'-end G-quadruplex formed in the human PDGFR-β promoter: Insight into a transcriptional inhibitor element [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 685.