Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea

We have made an accidental discovery of an unusual, single-stranded, guanine-rich DNA molecule that is capable of adopting a folded structure in 7 M urea (7MU) known to denature nucleic acid structures. The folding of this molecule requires Na(+) and Mg(2+) and the folded structure remains stable wh...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zhang, Wenqing, Liu, Meng, Lee, Christine, Salena, Bruno J., Li, Yingfu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5792554/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29386529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20248-w
_version_ 1783296761464356864
author Zhang, Wenqing
Liu, Meng
Lee, Christine
Salena, Bruno J.
Li, Yingfu
author_facet Zhang, Wenqing
Liu, Meng
Lee, Christine
Salena, Bruno J.
Li, Yingfu
author_sort Zhang, Wenqing
collection PubMed
description We have made an accidental discovery of an unusual, single-stranded, guanine-rich DNA molecule that is capable of adopting a folded structure in 7 M urea (7MU) known to denature nucleic acid structures. The folding of this molecule requires Na(+) and Mg(2+) and the folded structure remains stable when subjected to denaturing (7MU) polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Results from sequence mutagenesis, DNA methylation, and circular dichroism spectroscopy studies suggest that this molecule adopts an intramolecular guanine-quadruplex structure with 5 layers of guanine tetrads. Our finding indicates that DNA has the ability to create extremely stable structural folds despite its limited chemical repertoire, making it possible to develop DNA-based systems for unconventional applications.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5792554
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-57925542018-02-12 Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea Zhang, Wenqing Liu, Meng Lee, Christine Salena, Bruno J. Li, Yingfu Sci Rep Article We have made an accidental discovery of an unusual, single-stranded, guanine-rich DNA molecule that is capable of adopting a folded structure in 7 M urea (7MU) known to denature nucleic acid structures. The folding of this molecule requires Na(+) and Mg(2+) and the folded structure remains stable when subjected to denaturing (7MU) polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Results from sequence mutagenesis, DNA methylation, and circular dichroism spectroscopy studies suggest that this molecule adopts an intramolecular guanine-quadruplex structure with 5 layers of guanine tetrads. Our finding indicates that DNA has the ability to create extremely stable structural folds despite its limited chemical repertoire, making it possible to develop DNA-based systems for unconventional applications. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5792554/ /pubmed/29386529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20248-w Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Wenqing
Liu, Meng
Lee, Christine
Salena, Bruno J.
Li, Yingfu
Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title_full Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title_fullStr Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title_full_unstemmed Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title_short Serendipitous Discovery of a Guanine-rich DNA Molecule with a Highly Stable Structure in Urea
title_sort serendipitous discovery of a guanine-rich dna molecule with a highly stable structure in urea
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5792554/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29386529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20248-w
work_keys_str_mv AT zhangwenqing serendipitousdiscoveryofaguaninerichdnamoleculewithahighlystablestructureinurea
AT liumeng serendipitousdiscoveryofaguaninerichdnamoleculewithahighlystablestructureinurea
AT leechristine serendipitousdiscoveryofaguaninerichdnamoleculewithahighlystablestructureinurea
AT salenabrunoj serendipitousdiscoveryofaguaninerichdnamoleculewithahighlystablestructureinurea
AT liyingfu serendipitousdiscoveryofaguaninerichdnamoleculewithahighlystablestructureinurea

Ejemplares similares