Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase can bind melphalan damaged DNA.

As a means of identifying damage recognition proteins involved in repair of nitrogen mustard lesions in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, we performed Southwestern analysis using a probe damaged with melphalan and protein extracts from chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. We detected proteins with molecular weights of 116,000, 66,000, and 64,000 which bound the damaged probe with a higher specificity than the undamaged probe. The M(r) 66,000 and …