PrimPol is a human deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) polymerase that also possesses primase activity and is involved in DNA damage tolerance, the prevention of genome instability and mitochondrial DNA maintenance. In this review, we focus on recent advances in biochemical and crystallographic studies of PrimPol, as well as in identification of new protein-protein interaction partners. Furthermore, we discuss the possible functions of PrimPol in both the nucleus and the mitochondria.

Human PrimPol is a DNA primase/polymerase involved in DNA damage tolerance and prevents nuclear genome instability. PrimPol is also localized to the mitochondria, but its precise function in mitochondrial DNA maintenance has remained elusive. PrimPol works both as a translesion (TLS) polymerase and as the primase that restarts DNA replication after a lesion. However, the observed biochemical activities of PrimPol vary considerably between studies as a result of different reaction conditions used. To reveal the effects of reaction composition on PrimPol DNA polymerase activity, we tested the polymerase activity in the presence of various buffer agents, salt concentrations, pH values and metal cofactors. Additionally, the enzyme stability was analyzed under various conditions. We demonstrate that the reaction buffer with pH 6–6.5, low salt concentrations and 3 mM Mg²⁺ or 0.3–3 mM Mn²⁺ cofactor ions supports the highest DNA polymerase activity of human PrimPol in vitro. The DNA polymerase activity of PrimPol was found to be stable after multiple freeze-thaw cycles and prolonged protein incubation on ice. However, rapid heat-inactivation of the enzyme was observed at 37ºC. We also for the first time describe the purification of human PrimPol from a human cell line and compare the benefits of this approach to the expression in Escherichia coli and in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells. Our results show that active PrimPol can be purified from E. coli and human suspension cell line in high quantities and that the activity of the purified enzyme is similar in both expression systems. Conversely, the yield of full-length protein expressed in S. cerevisiae was considerably lower and this system is therefore not recommended for expression of full-length recombinant human PrimPol.

Tens of thousands of DNA lesions are formed in mammalian cells each day. DNA translesion synthesis is the main mechanism of cell defense against unrepaired DNA lesions. DNA polymerases iota (Pol ι), eta (Pol η), kappa (Pol κ), and zeta (Pol ζ) have active sites that are less stringent toward the DNA template structure and efficiently incorporate nucleotides opposite DNA lesions. However, these polymerases display low accuracy of DNA synthesis and can introduce mutations in genomic DNA. Impaired functioning of these enzymes can lead to an increased risk of cancer.

Transcripts of many enzymes involved in base excision repair (BER) undergo extensive alternative splicing, but functions of the corresponding alternative splice variants remain largely unexplored. In this review, we cover the studies describing the common alternatively spliced isoforms and disease-associated variants of DNA glycosylases, AP-endonuclease 1, and DNA polymerase beta. We also discuss the roles of alternative splicing in the regulation of their expression, catalytic activities, and intracellular transport.

Human PrimPol is a unique enzyme possessing DNA/RNA primase and DNA polymerase activities. In this work, we demonstrated that PrimPol efficiently fills a 5-nt gap and possesses the conditional strand displacement activity stimulated by Mn²⁺ ions and accessory replicative proteins RPA and PolDIP2. The DNA displacement activity of PrimPol was found to be more efficient than the RNA displacement activity and FEN1 processed the 5′-DNA flaps generated by PrimPol in vitro.