Abdelhamid, MAS;
Waller, ZAE;
(2020)
Tricky Topology: Persistence of Folded Human Telomeric i-Motif DNA at Ambient Temperature and Neutral pH.
Frontiers in Chemistry
, 8
10.3389/fchem.2020.00040.
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Abstract
i-Motifs are four-stranded DNA structures formed from sequences rich in cytosine, held together by hemi-protonated cytosine-cytosine base pairs. These structures have been utilized extensively as pH-switches in DNA-based nanotechnology. Recently there has been an increasing interest in i-motif structures in biology, fuelled by examples of when these can form under neutral conditions. Herein we describe a cautionary tale regarding handling of i-motif samples. Using CD and UV spectroscopy we show that it is important to be consistent in annealing i-motif DNA samples as at neutral pH, i-motif unfolding kinetics is dependent on the time allowed for annealing and equilibration. We describe how the quadruplex structure formed by the human telomeric i-motif sequence can be shown to form and persist in the same conditions of neutral pH and ambient temperature in which, once at thermodynamic equilibrium, it exists predominantly as a random coil. This study has implications not only for work with i-motif DNA structures, but also in the uses and applications of these in nanotechnological devices.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Tricky Topology: Persistence of Folded Human Telomeric i-Motif DNA at Ambient Temperature and Neutral pH |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fchem.2020.00040 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2020.00040 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2020 Abdelhamid and Waller. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | i-motif, cytosine, quadruplex, DNA, topology, kinetics |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Pharma and Bio Chemistry |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10110541 |
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