{"title":"Investigations of the cation binding to nucleotides by monitoring the hairpin-duplex equilibrium of a self-complementary sequence.","authors":"Shu-ichi Nakano, Hidenobu Hirayama, Naoki Sugimoto","doi":"10.1093/nass/nrp115","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nucleotide folding accompanies cation binding that shields the electronegative potential of phosphate groups, and metal ions in the condensation layer predominantly associate diffusely with base-paired nucleotides. Although metal ions bound at specific sites have been well studied, information of diffusely bound cations, that usually have a weak binding affinity than those associating at specific sites, have not been thoroughly studied. We explored a convenient experimental system using a self-complementary nucleotide sequence for analyzing cationic ligands diffusely bound to DNA or RNA base pairs. To study the metal ion-nucleotide interaction under a non-homologous aqueous condition, solutions containing a large amount of PEG (polyethylene glycol) were examined. We found that PEG (e.g., 20 wt%) substantially influenced the metal ion binding to nucleotides, suggesting significances of the molecular environment on nucleotide-cation interactions.</p>","PeriodicalId":87448,"journal":{"name":"Nucleic acids symposium series (2004)","volume":" 53","pages":"229-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2009-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/nass/nrp115","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nucleic acids symposium series (2004)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/nass/nrp115","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Nucleotide folding accompanies cation binding that shields the electronegative potential of phosphate groups, and metal ions in the condensation layer predominantly associate diffusely with base-paired nucleotides. Although metal ions bound at specific sites have been well studied, information of diffusely bound cations, that usually have a weak binding affinity than those associating at specific sites, have not been thoroughly studied. We explored a convenient experimental system using a self-complementary nucleotide sequence for analyzing cationic ligands diffusely bound to DNA or RNA base pairs. To study the metal ion-nucleotide interaction under a non-homologous aqueous condition, solutions containing a large amount of PEG (polyethylene glycol) were examined. We found that PEG (e.g., 20 wt%) substantially influenced the metal ion binding to nucleotides, suggesting significances of the molecular environment on nucleotide-cation interactions.