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From Proteopedia
Crystal Structure of a Copper-Mediated Base Pair in DNA
Overview
Stable and selective DNA base pairing by metal coordination was recently demonstrated with nucleotides containing complementary pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate (Dipic) and pyridine (Py) bases (Meggers, E.; Holland, P. L.; Tolman; W. B.; Romesberg, F. E.; Schultz, P. G. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 10714-10715). To understand the structural consequences of introducing this novel base pair into DNA we have solved the crystal structure of a duplex containing the metallo-base pair. The structure shows that the bases pair as designed, but in a Z-DNA conformation. The structure also provides a structural explanation for the B- to Z-DNA transition in this duplex. Further solution studies demonstrate that the metallo-base pair is compatible with Z- or B-DNA conformations, depending on the duplex sequence.
About this Structure
Full crystallographic information is available from OCA.
Reference
Structure of a copper-mediated base pair in DNA., Atwell S, Meggers E, Spraggon G, Schultz PG, J Am Chem Soc. 2001 Dec 12;123(49):12364-7. PMID:11734038 Page seeded by OCA on Fri May 2 21:08:09 2008
Categories: Atwell, S. | Meggers, E. | Schultz, P G. | Spraggon, G. | Copper | Cu | Designed | Dna | Dodecamer | Duplex | Metal | Unnatural | Z-dna
