TY - JOUR
T1 - Three-arm nucleic acid junctions are flexible
AU - Ma, Rong Ine
AU - Kallenbach, Neville R.
AU - Sheardy, Richard D.
AU - Petrillo, Mary L.
AU - Seeman, Nadrian C.
N1 - Funding Information:
technical assistance. This work has been supported CA-24101 from the National Institutes of Health.
PY - 1986/12/9
Y1 - 1986/12/9
N2 - Nucleic acid junctions are stable analogs of branched DNA structures which occur transiently in living systems. We show here that junctions which contain three double helical arms can be enzymatically oligomerized, using conventional sticky-ended ligation procedures, to create larger complexes. The products consist of a series of linked junctions separated by 20 base pairs. Junction dimers are formed that have free termini only, whereas trimers and larger species are found to be both unclosed and cyclized. The formation of a series of macrocyclic products which, surprisingly, begins with trimers and tetramers indicates that this junction is flexible about a bending axis, and perhaps twist-wise as well. We have obtained the same results from three different 3-arm junctions, two in which the junction is flanked by a 3 Watson-Crick base pairs, and one in which a G-G base pair flanks the junction.
AB - Nucleic acid junctions are stable analogs of branched DNA structures which occur transiently in living systems. We show here that junctions which contain three double helical arms can be enzymatically oligomerized, using conventional sticky-ended ligation procedures, to create larger complexes. The products consist of a series of linked junctions separated by 20 base pairs. Junction dimers are formed that have free termini only, whereas trimers and larger species are found to be both unclosed and cyclized. The formation of a series of macrocyclic products which, surprisingly, begins with trimers and tetramers indicates that this junction is flexible about a bending axis, and perhaps twist-wise as well. We have obtained the same results from three different 3-arm junctions, two in which the junction is flanked by a 3 Watson-Crick base pairs, and one in which a G-G base pair flanks the junction.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0023055390&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0023055390&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/nar/14.24.9745
DO - 10.1093/nar/14.24.9745
M3 - Article
C2 - 3808954
AN - SCOPUS:0023055390
SN - 0305-1048
VL - 14
SP - 9745
EP - 9753
JO - Nucleic Acids Research
JF - Nucleic Acids Research
IS - 24
ER -