Machine Learning to Decipher the Sequence Specificity of Primases

Primases play a crucial role in DNA replication and are possible drug targets for proliferating cells such as cancer cells. The specificity of primases for their template is limited and only poorly investigated. Using a previously published protein binding microarray (PBM) dataset (Soffer et al., 2021) we could define the specificity of the T7 primase with a simple thermodynamic model. The found specificity agrees with prior biochemical investigations and stressed that the template is recognized with the aid of the initiating and elongating nucleotide bound by the active site of the primase (Lipps, 2024).

Funded by Schweizer Nationalfond.

Soffer, A., Eisdorfer, S.A., Ifrach, M., Ilic, S., Afek, A., Schussheim, H., Vilenchik, D., Akabayov, B., 2021. Inferring primase-DNA specific recognition using a data driven approach. Nucleic Acids Res. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab956
Lipps, G., 2024. Definition of the binding specificity of the T7 bacteriophage primase by analysis of a protein binding microarray using a thermodynamic model. Nucleic Acids Res. gkae215. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkae215