Structure of long human telomeric RNA (TERRA): G-quadruplexes formed by four and eight UUAGGG repeats are stable building blocks.

The discovery of long RNA transcripts of telomeric repeats (TERRA) and their potential to form G-quadruplexes stimulated studies on the possible arrangements of G-quadruplexes along TERRA. Here we performed ribonuclease protection assay to investigate the structures formed by long human TERRA. We found that G-quadruplexes comprising four and eight UUAGGG repeats were most resistant to RNase T1 digestion, presumably with the former adopting an all-parallel-stranded propeller-type conformation and the latter forming a structure with two tandemly stacked G-quadruplex subunits each containing three G-tetrad layers. Molecular dynamics simulations of eight-repeat human TERRA sequences consisting of different stacking interfaces between the two G-quadruplex subunits, i.e., 5'-5', 3'-3', 3'-5', and 5'-3', demonstrated stacking feasibility for all but the 5'-3' arrangement. A continuous stacking of the loop bases from one G-quadruplex subunit to the next was observed for the 5'-5' stacking conformation. We also put forward other possible stacking arrangements that involve more than one linker connecting the two G-quadruplex subunits. On the basis of these results, we propose a "beads-on-a-string"-like arrangement along human TERRA, whereby each bead is made up of either four or eight UUAGGG repeats in a one- or two-block G-quadruplex arrangement, respectively.