Robidoux S, Klinck R, Gehring K, Damha M J
Department of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
J Biomol Struct Dyn. 1997 Dec;15(3):517-27. doi: 10.1080/07391102.1997.10508962.
The unique architecture of branched oligonucleotides mimicking lariat RNA introns [Wallace and Edmons, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80, 950-954 (1983)] was exploited to study compounds that associate as two parallel duplexes with intercalating C/C+ base pairs (i-motif DNA) [Gehring et al. Nature 363, 561-565 (1993)]. The formation of a branched cytosine tetrad was induced by joining the 5'-ends of pair of pentadeoxycytidine strands with a branching riboadenosine (rA) linker. This arrangement causes the orientation of the dC strands to be parallel, and forces the formation of a C/C+ duplex that self-associates into i-DNA. Presence of the i-motif in this structure is supported by thermal denaturation, native gel electrophoresis, CD, and NMR spectroscopy.
