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Publication Abstract from PubMed

DNA has proved to be an excellent material for nanoscale construction because complementary DNA duplexes are programmable and structurally predictable. However, in the absence of Watson-Crick pairings, DNA can be structurally more diverse. Here, we describe the crystal structures of d(ACTCGGATGAT) and the brominated derivative, d(ACBrUCGGABrUGAT). These oligonucleotides form parallel-stranded duplexes with a crystallographically equivalent strand, resulting in the first examples of DNA crystal structures that contains four different symmetric homo base pairs. Two of the parallel-stranded duplexes are coaxially stacked in opposite directions and locked together to form a tetraplex through intercalation of the 5'-most A-A base pairs between adjacent G-G pairs in the partner duplex. The intercalation region is a new type of DNA tertiary structural motif with similarities to the i-motif. 1H-1H nuclear magnetic resonance and native gel electrophoresis confirmed the formation of a parallel-stranded duplex in solution. Finally, we modified specific nucleotide positions and added d(GAY) motifs to oligonucleotides and were readily able to obtain similar crystals. This suggests that this parallel-stranded DNA structure may be useful in the rational design of DNA crystals and nanostructures.

An intercalation-locked parallel-stranded DNA tetraplex.,Tripathi S, Zhang D, Paukstelis PJ Nucleic Acids Res. 2015 Jan 27. pii: gkv033. PMID:25628357^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.