title: Recent Development of G-Quadruplex Probes for Cellular Imaging.
abstract: The G-quadruplex structure is a non-canonical secondary DNA motif that is built from planar tetrads of guanine residues stabilized by Hoogsteen-type hydrogen bonding. Bioinformatics studies indicate that sequences rich in guanine that are able to form G-quadruplexes are widely distributed throughout the human genome, particularly in telomere and promoter regions of genes. G-quadruplex sequences found in the promoters of human oncogenes, such as k-ras, c-myc and bcl-2 have attracted particular attention as molecular targets for therapeutic intervention due to their potential capability to regulate gene expression at the transcriptional level. Moreover, the G-quadruplex structure has been associated with a number of human diseases arising from defective telomeric maintenance. Despite intensive research in this area, however, the actual function of G-quadruplexes in vivo has not yet been fully understood. Therefore, significant efforts have been devoted to the discovery of specific probes for visualizing and distinguishing G-quadruplex structures from other nucleic acid molecules likely to be found in biological environments. This review summarizes recent studies in the development of G-quadruplex probes over the past three years, with a particular emphasize on the detection and imaging of G-quadruplex structures within living cells. Furthermore, the detection and biological relevance of RNA G-quadruplexes is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China. edmondma@hkbu.edu.hk.
authors.forename: Dik-Lung
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Modi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Quan-Bin
authors.initials: QB
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Chung-Hang
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Leung
mesh_terms: D015342:DNA Probes / Q000737:chemistry*; D054856:G-Quadruplexes; D006801:Humans; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D015394:Molecular Structure
chemical_list: D015342:DNA Probes