Department of Chemistry, Marshall University, Huntington, WV, 25755, USA.
Electrophoresis. 2021 Jul;42(12-13):1300-1305. doi: 10.1002/elps.202100056. Epub 2021 Mar 20.
Over the past few years, intercalated motifs (i-motifs) have attracted attention due to the direct visualization of their existence in the nuclei of human cells. Traditionally, i-motifs have been studied using expensive and complicated NMR, and/or relatively inexpensive but less common circular dichroism spectrometry. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using less expensive, less complicated, and more widely available CE as an alternative for i-motif related research. The mobilities of two DNA and RNA i-motifs in CE were determined under different pH conditions. Our results demonstrate that CE is able to identify and differentiate mostly folded, partially folded, and mostly unfolded DNA and RNA i-motifs through changes in peak shape and migration time, thus providing a new method to study both i-motif conformation and the interactions between i-motifs and their ligands.
在过去的几年中，由于能够直接在人类细胞核中观察到穿插基序（i-motif）的存在，它们引起了人们的关注。传统上，i-motif 一直使用昂贵且复杂的 NMR 和/或相对便宜但不太常见的圆二色光谱法进行研究。本研究旨在探讨使用更便宜、更简单且更广泛可用的毛细管电泳（CE）作为 i-motif 相关研究替代方法的可行性。在不同 pH 条件下，确定了两种 DNA 和 RNA i-motif 在 CE 中的迁移率。我们的研究结果表明，CE 能够通过峰形和迁移时间的变化识别和区分大多数折叠、部分折叠和大多数未折叠的 DNA 和 RNA i-motif，从而为研究 i-motif 构象以及 i-motif 与其配体之间的相互作用提供了一种新方法。
