Aflatoxin B
1 (AFB) epoxide forms an unstable
N7 guanine adduct in DNA. T
he adduct undergoesbase-catalyzed ring opening to give a
hig
hly persistent formamidopyrimidine (FAPY) adduct w
hic
h existsas a mixture of forms. Acid
hydrolysis of t
he FAPY adduct gives t
he FAPY base w
hic
h exists in two separablebut interconvertible forms t
hat
have been assigned by various workers as functional, positional, orconformational isomers. Recently, t
his structural question became important w
hen one of t
he two majorFAPY species in DNA was found to be potently mutagenic and t
he ot
her a block to replication [Smela, M.E.; Hamm, M. L.; Henderson, P. T.; Harris, C. M.; Harris, T. M.; Essigmann, J. M.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.U.S.A. 2002,
99, 6655-6660]. NMR studies carried out on t
he AFB-FAPY bases and deoxynucleoside3',5'-dibutyrates now establis
h t
hat t
he separable FAPY bases and nucleosides are diastereomeric N
5formyl derivatives involving axial asymmetry around t
he congested pyrimidine C5-N
5 bond. Anomerizationof t
he protected
hars/beta2.gif" BORDER=0 ALIGN="middle">-deoxyriboside was not observed, but in t
he absence of acyl protection, bot
h anomerizationand furanosyl
pyranosyl ring expansion occurred. In oligodeoxynucleotides, two equilibrating FAPYspecies, separable by HPLC, are assigned as anomers. T
he form normally present in duplex DNA is t
hemutagenic species. It
has previously been assigned as t
he
hars/beta2.gif" BORDER=0 ALIGN="middle"> anomer by NMR (Mao, H.; Deng, Z. W.;Wang, F.; Harris, T. M.; Stone, M. P.
Biochemistry 1998,
37, 4374-4387). In single-stranded environmentst
he dominant species is t
he
hars/alp
ha.gif" BORDER=0> anomer; it is a block to replication.