Hydrolysable tannins are iron chelators that inhibit DNA repair enzyme ALKBH2.

Hydrolyzable tannins are a class of polyphenolic compounds commonly found in natural products. In this work, we studied the in vitro inhibitory mechanism of six molecules in this class on ALKBH2, an Fe(II)/alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent DNA repair enzyme in the A1kB family. We determined the IC50 values of these compounds on the repair of 3-methylcytosine and 1-methyladenine, the prototypical substrates of ALKBH2. A structure-activity relationship was also observed between the strength of inhibition and the number of galloyl moieties in a molecule. In addition, we found that the inhibition by this class of polyphenolic compounds on ALKBH2 is through an iron-chelating mechanism.