Saturation of DNA mismatch repair and error catastrophe by a base analogue in Escherichia coli

Deoxyribosyl-dihydropyrimido [4,5-c] [1,2] oxazin-7-one (dP) is a potent mutagenic deoxycytidine-derived base analogue capable of pairing with both A and G, thereby causing G (.) C --> A (.) T and A (.) T --> G (.) C transition mutations. We have found that the Escherichia coli DNA mismatch-repair system can protect cells against this mutagenic action. At a low dose, dP is much more mutagenic in mismatch-repair-defective mutes, mutL, and mutS strains than in a wild-type strain. At higher doses, the difference between the wildtype and the mutator strains becomes small, indicative of saturation of mismatch repair. Introduction of a plasmid containing the E. coli mutL(+) gene significantly reduces dP-induced mutagenesis. Together, the results indicate that the mismatch-repair system can remove dP-induced replication errors, but that its capacity to remove dP-containing mismatches can readily be saturated. When cells are cultured at high dP concentration, mutant frequencies reach exceptionally high levels and viable cell counts are reduced. The observations are consistent with a hypothesis in which dP-induced cell killing and growth impairment result from excess mutations (error catastrophe), as previously observed spontaneously in proofreading-deficient mutD (dnaQ) strains.