DNA base flipping

DNA base flipping, or nucleotide flipping, is a mechanism in which a single nucleotide base, or nucleobase, is rotated outside the nucleic acid double helix. This occurs when a nucleic acid-processing enzyme needs access to the base to perform work on it, such as its excision for replacement with another base during DNA repair. It was first observed in 1994 using X-ray crystallography in a methyltransferase enzyme catalyzing methylation of a cytosine base in DNA. Since then, it has been shown to be used by different enzymes in many biological processes such as DNA methylation, various DNA repair mechanisms, and DNA replication. It can also occur in RNA double helices or in the DNA:RNA intermediates formed during RNA transcription.

DNA base flipping occurs by breaking the hydrogen bonds between the bases and unstacking the base from its neighbors. This could occur through an active process, where an enzyme binds to the DNA and then facilitates rotation of the base, or a passive process, where the base rotates out spontaneously, and this state is recognized and bound by an enzyme. It can be detected using X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, or hybridization probes.

Base flipping was first observed in 1994 when researchers Klimasauskas, Kumar, Roberts, and Cheng used X-ray crystallography to view an intermediate step in the chemical reaction of a methyltransferase bound to DNA. The methyltransferase they used was the C5-cytosine methyltransferase from Haemophilus haemolyticus (M. HhaI). This enzyme recognizes a specific sequence of the DNA (5'-GCGC-3') and methylates the first cytosine base of the sequence at its C5 location. Upon crystallization of the M. HhaI-DNA complex, they saw the target cytosine base was rotated completely out of the double helix and was positioned in the active site of the M. HhaI. It was held in place by numerous interactions between the M. HhaI and DNA.

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