Self-Assembly of G-Rich Oligonucleotides Incorporating a 3'-3' Inversion of Polarity Site: A New Route Towards G-Wire DNA Nanostructures

ChemistryOpen. 2017 Jun 13;6(4):599-605. doi: 10.1002/open.201700024. eCollection 2017 Aug.

Abstract

Obtaining DNA nanostructures with potential applications in drug discovery, diagnostics, and electronics in a simple and affordable way represents one of the hottest topics in nanotechnological and medical sciences. Herein, we report a novel strategy to obtain structurally homogeneous DNA G-wire nanostructures of known length, starting from the short unmodified G-rich oligonucleotide d(5'-CGGT-3'-3'-GGC-5') (1) incorporating a 3'-3' inversion of polarity site. The reported approach allowed us to obtain long G-wire assemblies through 5'-5' π-π stacking interactions in between the tetramolecular G-quadruplex building blocks that form when 1 is annealed in the presence of potassium ions. Our results expand the repertoire of synthetic methodologies to obtain new tailored DNA G-wire nanostructures.

Keywords: DNA nanostructures; G-quadruplexes; G-wires; inversion of polarity sites; self-assembly.