Adriamycin and Daunorubicin Inhibition of Mutant T4 DNA Polymerases

Adriamycin and Daunorubicin Inhibition of Mutant T4 DNA Polymerases

Myron F. Goodman*,†,
Maurice J. Bessman*, and
Nicholas R. Bachur‡

^*McCollum-Pratt Institute, Department of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218
^‡Biochemistry Section, Baltimore Cancer Research Center, NCI, Baltimore, Maryland 21211

Abstract

The anticancer drugs, adriamycin and daunorubicin, as well as two other DNA reagents, ethidium bromide and 9-aminoacridine, all exert a differential inhibitory effect on nucleotide incorporation for purified DNA polymerases induced by mutant and wild-type bacteriophage T4. When compared with DNA polymerase of wild-type phage, antimutator enzymes are inhibited to a far greater extent and mutator enzymes to a lesser extent. In contrast, the polymerase-associated 3′-exonuclease activities of wild type and mutants are also inhibited by the compounds but nondifferentially.