polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase serves a crucial role in the repair of DNA strand breaks by catalyzing the restoration of 5'-phosphate and 3'-hydroxyl termini. It is involved in single-strand break repair and participates in several DNA repair pathways through interactions with other DNA repair proteins, notably XRCC1 and XRCC4, regulation and enzyme recruitment, overview. Physiological importance of PNKP in maintaining the genomic stability of normal tissues, particularly developing neural cells, as well as enhancing the resistance of cancer cells to genotoxic therapeutic agents. The enzyme also performs base excision and double-strand break repair, overview
PNKP function is modulated by interaction with the DNA repair scaffold proteins XRCC1 and XRCC4, which is mediated by binding of the PNKP FHA domain to phosphorylated motifs on XRCC1 and XRCC4, overview. The crystal structure of murine PNKP shows that the two catalytic active sites are positioned on the same side of the protein
mice with PNKP inactivation in neural progenitors manifest neurodevelopmental abnormalities and postnatal death. The phenotype involves defective base excision repair and nonhomologous end-joining. Mice homozygous for the T424GfsX48 frame-shift allele are lethal embryonically, and attenuated PNKP levels akin to microcephaly with seizures syndrome show general neurodevelopmental defects. Directed postnatal neural inactivation of PNKP affects specific subpopulations including oligodendrocytes
the phosphatase domain binds 3'-phosphorylated single-stranded DNAs in a manner that is highly dependent on the presence of the 3'-phosphate. Double-stranded substrate binding is not as dependent on the 3'-phosphate. The predicted loss of energy due to base pair disruption upon binding of the phosphatase active site is likely balanced by favorable interactions between the liberated complementary strand and PNKP. The surrounding surfaces of the active site cleft are important in binding to double-stranded substrates
transgenic mice conditionally expressing the pathological form of human ataxin-3, a polyglutamine repeat-containing protein mutated in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, also show decreased 3'-phosphatase activity of PNKP, mostly in the deep cerebellar nuclei
PNK phosphatase is a multidomain enzyme that consists of an N-terminal forkhead-associated domain and a C-terminal catalytic domain composed of fused phosphatase and kinase subdomains, structure of mammalian PNK phosphatase, overview
fluorescence polarization methods can detect specific binding of single-stranded DNAs with the phosphatase domain, but not specific interactions between the PNKP phosphatase and double-stranded substrates