ABSTRACT
Temozolomide kills cancer cells by forming O6-methylguanine (O6-MeG), which leads to apoptosis due to mismatch-repair overload. However, O6-MeG repair by O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) contributes to drug resistance. Characterizing genomic profiles of O6-MeG could elucidate how O6-MeG accumulation is influenced by repair, but there are no methods to map genomic locations of O6-MeG. Here, we developed an immunoprecipitation- and polymerase-stalling-based method, termed O6-MeG-seq, to locate O6-MeG across the whole genome at single-nucleotide resolution. We analyzed O6-MeG formation and repair with regards to sequence contexts and functional genomic regions in glioblastoma-derived cell lines and evaluated the impact of MGMT. O6-MeG signatures were highly similar to mutational signatures from patients previously treated with temozolomide. Furthermore, MGMT did not preferentially repair O6-MeG with respect to sequence context, chromatin state or gene expression level, however, may protect oncogenes from mutations. Finally, we found an MGMT-independent strand bias in O6-MeG accumulation in highly expressed genes, suggesting an additional transcription-associated contribution to its repair. These data provide high resolution insight on how O6-MeG formation and repair is impacted by genome structure and regulation. Further, O6-MeG-seq is expected to enable future studies of DNA modification signatures as diagnostic markers for addressing drug resistance and preventing secondary cancers.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
The revised version has a more thorough discussion and parts of figure 3 were moved to supplementary figures.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE249155
