scholarly journals Reversible regulation of metallo-base-pair interactions for DNA dehybridization by ultrasound

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaidong Huo ◽  
Yu Zhou ◽  
Zhihuan Liao ◽  
Pengkun Zhao ◽  
Miancheng Zou ◽  
...  

Ultrasound leads to the reversible dissociation of DNA metallo-base-pairs when these motifs are functionalized with oligodeoxynucleotide sequences of sufficient length.


1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (04) ◽  
pp. 500-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Peretz ◽  
U Seligsohn ◽  
E Zwang ◽  
B S Coller ◽  
P J Newman

SummarySevere Glanzmann's thrombasthenia is relatively frequent in Iraqi-Jews and Arabs residing in Israel. We have recently described the mutations responsible for the disease in Iraqi-Jews – an 11 base pair deletion in exon 12 of the glycoprotein IIIa gene, and in Arabs – a 13 base pair deletion at the AG acceptor splice site of exon 4 on the glycoprotein IIb gene. In this communication we show that the Iraqi-Jewish mutation can be identified directly by polymerase chain reaction and gel electrophoresis. With specially designed oligonucleotide primers encompassing the mutation site, an 80 base pair segment amplified in healthy controls was clearly distinguished from the 69 base pair segment produced in patients. Patients from 11 unrelated Iraqi-Jewish families had the same mutation. The Arab mutation was identified by first amplifying a DNA segment consisting of 312 base pairs in controls and of 299 base pairs in patients, and then digestion by a restriction enzyme Stu-1, which recognizes a site that is absent in the mutant gene. In controls the 312 bp segment was digested into 235 and 77 bp fragments, while in patients there was no change in the size of the amplified 299 bp segment. The mutation was found in patients from 3 out of 5 unrelated Arab families. Both Iraqi-Jewish and Arab mutations were detectable in DNA extracted from blood and urine samples. The described simple methods of identifying the mutations should be useful for detection of the numerous potential carriers among the affected kindreds and for prenatal diagnosis using DNA extracted from chorionic villi samples.



1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 3401-3409
Author(s):  
D K Bishop ◽  
R D Kolodner

Purified heteroduplex plasmid DNAs containing 8- or 12-base-pair insertion mismatches or AC or CT substitution mismatches were used to transform Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Two insertion mismatches, separated by 943 base pairs, were repaired independently of each other at least 55% of the time. This suggested that repair tracts were frequently shorter than 1 kilobase. The two insertion mismatches were repaired with different efficiencies. Comparison of the repair efficiency of one mismatched site with or without an adjacent mismatch suggests that mismatches promote their own repair and can influence the repair of neighboring mismatches. When two different plasmids containing single-insertion mismatches were transformed into S. cerevisiae cells, a slight preference towards insertion was detected among repair products of one of the two plasmids, while no repair preference was detected among transformants with the second plasmid.



2006 ◽  
Vol 188 (4) ◽  
pp. 1411-1418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangnan Chen ◽  
Amrita Kumar ◽  
Travis H. Wyman ◽  
Charles P. Moran

ABSTRACT At the onset of endospore formation in Bacillus subtilis the DNA-binding protein Spo0A directly activates transcription from promoters of about 40 genes. One of these promoters, Pskf, controls expression of an operon encoding a killing factor that acts on sibling cells. AbrB-mediated repression of Pskf provides one level of security ensuring that this promoter is not activated prematurely. However, Spo0A also appears to activate the promoter directly, since Spo0A is required for Pskf activity in a ΔabrB strain. Here we investigate the mechanism of Pskf activation. DNase I footprinting was used to determine the locations at which Spo0A bound to the promoter, and mutations in these sites were found to significantly reduce promoter activity. The sequence near the −10 region of the promoter was found to be similar to those of extended −10 region promoters, which contain a TRTGn motif. Mutational analysis showed that this extended −10 region, as well as other base pairs in the −10 region, is required for Spo0A-dependent activation of the promoter. We found that a substitution of the consensus base pair for the nonconsensus base pair at position −9 of Pskf produced a promoter that was active constitutively in both ΔabrB and Δspo0A ΔabrB strains. Therefore, the base pair at position −9 of Pskf makes its activity dependent on Spo0A binding, and the extended −10 region motif of the promoter contributes to its high level of activity.



1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (12) ◽  
pp. 2005-2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anirban Ghosh ◽  
Manju Bansal

AA·TT and GA·TC dinucleotide steps in B-DNA-type oligomeric crystal structures and in protein-bound DNA fragments (solved using data with resolution <2.6 Å) show very small variations in their local dinucleotide geometries. A detailed analysis of these crystal structures reveals that in AA·TT and GA·TC steps the electropositive C2—H2 group of adenine is in very close proximity to the keto O atoms of both the pyrimidine bases in the antiparallel strand of the duplex structure, suggesting the possibility of intra-base pair as well as cross-strand inter-base pair C—H...O hydrogen bonds in the DNA minor groove. The C2—H2...O2 hydrogen bonds in the A·T base pairs could be a natural consequence of Watson–Crick pairing. However, the cross-strand interactions between the bases at the 3′-end of the AA·TT and GA·TC steps obviously arise owing to specific local geometry of these steps, since a majority of the H2...O2 distances in both data sets are considerably shorter than their values in the uniform fibre model (3.3 Å) and many are even smaller than the sum of the van der Waals radii. The analysis suggests that in addition to already documented features such as the large propeller twist of A·T base pairs and the hydration of the minor groove, these C2—H2...O2 cross-strand interactions may also play a role in the narrowing of the minor groove in A-tract regions of DNA and help explain the high structural rigidity and stability observed for poly(dA)·poly(dT).



F1000Research ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Teresa Pires Carvalho ◽  
Maria Leonor Gouveia ◽  
Charan Raju Kanna ◽  
Sebastian K. T. S. Wärmländer ◽  
Jamie Platts ◽  
...  

We report herein a set of calculations designed to examine the effects of epigenetic modifications on the structure of DNA. The incorporation of methyl, hydroxymethyl, formyl and carboxy substituents at the 5-position of cytosine is shown to hardly affect the geometry of CG base pairs, but to result in rather larger changes to hydrogen-bond and stacking binding energies, as predicted by dispersion-corrected density functional theory (DFT) methods. The same modifications within double-stranded GCG and ACA trimers exhibit rather larger structural effects, when including the sugar-phosphate backbone as well as sodium counterions and implicit aqueous solvation. In particular, changes are observed in the buckle and propeller angles within base pairs and the slide and roll values of base pair steps, but these leave the overall helical shape of DNA essentially intact. The structures so obtained are useful as a benchmark of faster methods, including molecular mechanics (MM) and hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) methods. We show that previously developed MM parameters satisfactorily reproduce the trimer structures, as do QM/MM calculations which treat bases with dispersion-corrected DFT and the sugar-phosphate backbone with AMBER. The latter are improved by inclusion of all six bases in the QM region, since a truncated model including only the central CG base pair in the QM region is considerably further from the DFT structure. This QM/MM method is then applied to a set of double-stranded DNA heptamers derived from a recent X-ray crystallographic study, whose size puts a DFT study beyond our current computational resources. These data show that still larger structural changes are observed than in base pairs or trimers, leading us to conclude that it is important to model epigenetic modifications within realistic molecular contexts.



2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dittmore ◽  
Sumitabha Brahmachari ◽  
Yasuhara Takagi ◽  
John F. Marko ◽  
Keir C. Neuman

We present a method of detecting sequence defects by supercoiling DNA with magnetic tweezers. The method is sensitive to a single mismatched base pair in a DNA sequence of several thousand base pairs. We systematically compare DNA molecules with 0 to 16 adjacent mismatches at 1 M monovalent salt and 3.5 pN force and show that, under these conditions, a single plectoneme forms and is stably pinned at the defect. We use these measurements to estimate the energy and degree of end-loop kinking at defects. From this, we calculate the relative probability of plectoneme pinning at the mismatch under physiologically relevant conditions. Based on this estimate, we propose that DNA supercoiling could contribute to mismatch and damage sensing in vivo.



2004 ◽  
Vol 381 (3) ◽  
pp. 709-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry P. RAPPAPORT

With the goal of constructing a genetic alphabet consisting of a set of three base pairs, the fidelity of replication of the three base pairs TH (5-methyl-2-pyrimidinone)/HS (6-thiopurine; thiohypoxanthine), C/H (hypoxanthine) and T/A was evaluated using T7 DNA polymerase, a polymerase with a strong 3′→5′ exonuclease activity. An evaluation of the suitability of a new base pair for replication should include both the contribution of the fidelity of a polymerase activity and the contribution of proofreading by a 3′→5′ exonuclease activity. Using a steady-state kinetics method that included the contribution of the 3′→5′ exonuclease activity, the fidelity of replication was determined. The method determined the ratio of the apparent rate constant for the addition of a deoxynucleotide to the primer across from a template base by the polymerase activity and the rate constant for removal of the added deoxynucleotide from the primer by the 3′→5′ exonuclease activity. This ratio was designated the eni (efficiency of net incorporation). The eni of the base pair C/H was equal to or greater than the eni of T/A. The eni of the base pair TH/HS was 0.1 times that of A/T for TH in the template and 0.01 times that of A/T for HS in the template. The ratio of the eni of a mismatched deoxynucleotide to the eni of a matched deoxynucleotide was a measure of the error frequency. The error frequencies were as follows: thymine or TH opposite a template hypoxanthine, 2×10−6; HS opposite a template cytosine, <3×10−4. The remaining 24 mismatched combinations of bases gave no detectable net incorporation. Two mismatches, hypoxanthine opposite a template thymine or a template TH, showed trace incorporation in the presence of a standard dNTP complementary to the next template base. T7 DNA polymerase extended the primer beyond each of the matched base pairs of the set. The level of fidelity of replication of the three base pairs with T7 DNA polymerase suggests that they are adequate for a three-base-pair alphabet for DNA replication.



1984 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. 2661-2667
Author(s):  
D Dawson ◽  
G Herrick

Approximately 20,000 different short, linear, macronuclear DNA molecules are derived from micronuclear sequences of Oxytricha fallax after conjugation. These macronuclear DNAs are terminated at both ends by 20 base pairs of the sequence 5'-dC4A4-3'. Sequences homologous to this repeat (C4A4+) are also abundant in the micronuclear chromosomes, but most reside at their telomeres. Here we show that nontelomeric C4A4 clusters of 20 base pairs or longer exist in only a few hundred copies per micronuclear genome. This demonstrates that nearly none of the 20,000 sequence blocks of micronuclear DNA destined to be macronuclear DNA molecules can be flanked by full-length (20-base pair) C4A4 clusters, and therefore C4A4 repeats must be added to most, if not all, macronuclear telomeres during macronuclear development. Six internal micronuclear C4A4+ loci were cloned, and their structural relationships with macronuclear and micronuclear sequences were examined. The possible origins and functions of these rare, micronuclear internal C4A4 loci are discussed.



2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (18) ◽  
pp. 6571
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Thornton ◽  
Tanja van Mourik

Halogen bonding is studied in different structures consisting of halogenated guanine DNA bases, including the Hoogsteen guanine–guanine base pair, two different types of guanine ribbons (R-I and R-II) consisting of two or three monomers, and guanine quartets. In the halogenated base pairs (except the Cl-base pair, which has a very non-planar structure with no halogen bonds) and R-I ribbons (except the At trimer), the potential N-X•••O interaction is sacrificed to optimise the N-X•••N halogen bond. In the At trimer, the astatines originally bonded to N1 in the halogen bond donating guanines have moved to the adjacent O6 atom, enabling O-At•••N, N-At•••O, and N-At•••At halogen bonds. The brominated and chlorinated R-II trimers contain two N-X•••N and two N-X•••O halogen bonds, whereas in the iodinated and astatinated trimers, one of the N-X•••N halogen bonds is lost. The corresponding R-II dimers keep the same halogen bond patterns. The G-quartets display a rich diversity of symmetries and halogen bond patterns, including N-X•••N, N-X•••O, N-X•••X, O-X•••X, and O-X•••O halogen bonds (the latter two facilitated by the transfer of halogens from N1 to O6). In general, halogenation decreases the stability of the structures. However, the stability increases with the increasing atomic number of the halogen, and the At-doped R-I trimer and the three most stable At-doped quartets are more stable than their hydrogenated counterparts. Significant deviations from linearity are found for some of the halogen bonds (with halogen bond angles around 150°).



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