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Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Direct, label-free analysis of nucleic acids via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been continuously expanding its range of applications as an intriguing and powerful analytical tool for the structural characterization of diverse DNA structures. Still, interrogation of nucleic acid tert...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Guerrini, Luca, Alvarez-Puebla, Ramon A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7912272/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513847
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11020326
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author Guerrini, Luca
Alvarez-Puebla, Ramon A.
author_facet Guerrini, Luca
Alvarez-Puebla, Ramon A.
author_sort Guerrini, Luca
collection PubMed
description Direct, label-free analysis of nucleic acids via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been continuously expanding its range of applications as an intriguing and powerful analytical tool for the structural characterization of diverse DNA structures. Still, interrogation of nucleic acid tertiary structures beyond the canonical double helix often remains challenging. In this work, we report for the first time the structural identification of DNA triplex structures. This class of nucleic acids has been attracting great interest because of their intriguing biological functions and pharmacological potential in gene therapy, and the ability for precisely engineering DNA-based functional nanomaterials. Herein, structural discrimination of the triplex structure against its duplex and tertiary strand counterparts is univocally revealed by recognizing key markers bands in the intrinsic SERS fingerprint. These vibrational features are informative of the base stacking, Hoogsteen hydrogen bonding and sugar–phosphate backbone reorganization associated with the triple helix formation. This work expands the applicability of direct SERS to nucleic acids analysis, with potential impact on fields such as sensing, biology and drug design.
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spelling pubmed-79122722021-02-28 Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Guerrini, Luca Alvarez-Puebla, Ramon A. Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Direct, label-free analysis of nucleic acids via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been continuously expanding its range of applications as an intriguing and powerful analytical tool for the structural characterization of diverse DNA structures. Still, interrogation of nucleic acid tertiary structures beyond the canonical double helix often remains challenging. In this work, we report for the first time the structural identification of DNA triplex structures. This class of nucleic acids has been attracting great interest because of their intriguing biological functions and pharmacological potential in gene therapy, and the ability for precisely engineering DNA-based functional nanomaterials. Herein, structural discrimination of the triplex structure against its duplex and tertiary strand counterparts is univocally revealed by recognizing key markers bands in the intrinsic SERS fingerprint. These vibrational features are informative of the base stacking, Hoogsteen hydrogen bonding and sugar–phosphate backbone reorganization associated with the triple helix formation. This work expands the applicability of direct SERS to nucleic acids analysis, with potential impact on fields such as sensing, biology and drug design. MDPI 2021-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7912272/ /pubmed/33513847 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11020326 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Guerrini, Luca
Alvarez-Puebla, Ramon A.
Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title_full Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title_fullStr Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title_full_unstemmed Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title_short Structural Recognition of Triple-Stranded DNA by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy
title_sort structural recognition of triple-stranded dna by surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7912272/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513847
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11020326
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