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Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Induction of apoptosis by cordycepin in ADA-inhibited TdT-positive leukemia cells.

The nucleoside analogue cordycepin (3'-deoxyadenosine), when protected against ADA deamination, is specifically cytotoxic for TdT-positive leukemia cells. Cordycepin-treated, ADA-inhibited, TdT-positive cells undergo the classic changes associated with drug-induced apoptosis: reduction in cell volume, chromatin clumping, membrane blebbing, and 180-bp multimer DNA laddering on agarose gels. In common with the apoptosis seen in normal TdT-positive thymocytes, following exposure to various agents, apoptosis induced by cordycepin in TdT-positive leukemia cells was associated with increased protein kinase A (PK-A) activity. Unlike thymocyte apoptosis however, no elevation in cAMP levels was seen preceding the rise in PK-A activity. Ex vivo we show that cordycepin monophosphate can activate PK-A as efficiently as cAMP. On this basis we speculate that cordycepin monophosphate in TdT-positive cells may be able to activate PK-A in place of cAMP, and that PK-A may phosphorylate TdT, augmenting its activity as an endonuclease. In cell-free experiments, the activity of recombinant TdT as an endonuclease digesting supercoiled plasmid DNA into linear fragments was dramatically increased following phosphorylation of TdT by PK-A. A role for TdT as an apoptotic endonuclease in TdT-positive leukemia cells following cordycepin exposure is now the subject of on-going work.[1]

References

  1. Induction of apoptosis by cordycepin in ADA-inhibited TdT-positive leukemia cells. Koç, Y., Urbano, A.G., Sweeney, E.B., McCaffrey, R. Leukemia (1996) [Pubmed]
 
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