Molecular crowding of the cosolutes induces an intramolecular i-motif structure of triplet repeat DNA oligomers at neutral pH.
We now present the first example in which triplet repeat DNAs adopt the i-motif structure at neutral pH by molecular crowding. Crowding stabilized the i-motif and the pK(a) of N3 of cytosine was raised in such a microenvironment. Molecular crowding is known to accelerate the formation of the multi-stranded i-motif while the triplet repeats adopt the single-strand structure.
Rajendran
Arivazhagan
A
Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research, Konan University, 7-1-20 Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0047, Japan.
Nakano
Shu-ichi
S
Sugimoto
Naoki
N
D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded / Q000737:chemistry; D019281:Dimerization; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D018911:Trinucleotide Repeats
D004277:DNA, Single-Stranded; D004247:DNA