title: Fold-back structures at the distal end influence DNA slippage at the proximal end during mononucleotide repeat expansions.
abstract: Polymerase slippage during DNA synthesis by the Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase across A, C, G and T repeats (30 bases) has been studied. Within minutes, duplexes that contain only repeats (30 bp) expand dramatically to several hundred base pairs long. Rate comparisons in a repeat duplex when one strand was expanded as against that when both strands were expanded suggest a model of migrating hairpin loops which in the latter case coalesce into a duplex. Moreover, slippage (at the proximal or 3'-end) is subject to positive and negative effects from the 5'-end (distal) of the same strand. Growing T and G strands generate T.A:T and G-G:C motif fold-back structures at the distal end that hamper slippage at the proximal end. On the other hand, growing tails at the distal end upon annealing with excess complementary template accentuates proximal slippage several-fold.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, India.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Karthikeyan
authors.forename: K V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Chary
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Rao
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D004256:DNA Polymerase I; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009692:Nucleic Acid Heteroduplexes; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides / Q000737:chemistry; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D009692:Nucleic Acid Heteroduplexes; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D004247:DNA; D004256:DNA Polymerase I