Intercalative interactions of ethidium dyes with triplex structures
Journal article, 1995

The binding of phenanthridine dyes to tripler poly(dT)*poly(dA). poly(dT) and its precursor duplex poly(dA). poly(dT) is characterized using linear dichroism and circular dichroism spectroscopy, and thermal denaturation. The two monomeric dyes ethidium bromide and propidium iodide are shown to behave similarly to each other in intercalating into and stabilizing both the duplex and the tripler structures. However, contrary to expectations, the extra cationic side-chain of propidium iodide provides no significant extra stabilization of tripler compared with ethidium bromide, although propidium does stabilize the duplex more than ethidium. The monomeric dyes appear to have somewhat different binding geometries with the duplex and tripler polymers. The dimeric dye ethidium homodimer is found to bis-intercalate in the tripler as well as the duplex but, in contrast to the monomers, no variation in geometry between duplex and tripler is observed. However, although dimer stabilizes the duplex, it has no effect on the thermal stability of the tripler. This lack of binding preferentiality of the dimer for tripler compared with the monomeric dyes indicates greater constraints on the accommodation of a bis-intercalator in the tripler structure than in the duplex.

linear dichroism

ligands

groove binding-drug

monophosphate crystalline complex

oligonucleotides

helix-specific

antisense

site-specific intercalation

dna bifunctional intercalators

sugar conformations

nucleic acid interactions

stranded polynucleotides

Author

Eimer Tuite

Department of Physical Chemistry

Bengt Nordén

Department of Physical Chemistry

Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry

0968-0896 (ISSN) 1464-3391 (eISSN)

Vol. 3 6 701-711

Subject Categories

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

DOI

10.1016/0968-0896(95)00061-K

More information

Created

10/6/2017