Eu as a luminescence probe in DNA studies: Structural and conformational implications.

Lanthanide ions are widely used as luminescent probes for structural studies of various biomolecules, including DNA. Latest developments of circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) methodology further boosted interest to luminescence techniques. However, an effect of the lanthanide probes themselves on the DNA structure and conformation was investigated only partially and not for all lanthanides. In the present work, we performed a detailed spectroscopic study of Eu complexes with native double-stranded DNA and compared them to the relevant complexes with single-stranded DNA. We employed infrared (IR), vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectroscopic methods to investigate Eu effect on DNA structure and conformational transitions. It was shown that Eu ions can induce significant alteration of the native DNA structure at the concentrations often used in luminescence studies. While no DNA denaturation was observed at these metal ion concentrations, significant unstacking of the base pairs and disordering of the sugar-phosphate backbone, partial appearance of the A-form backbone geometry, and DNA transition into condensed ψ-type form took place. Eu binding to single-stranded DNA was more pronounced than the binding to double-stranded DNA. We detected the main Eu binding sites and determined the metal ion concentration range in which DNA geometry remains largely unaltered. The results obtained in the current study could be used for tuning the luminescence and CPL structural studies of DNA utilizing Eu ions as probes.