Thionucleoside disulfide cross-linked duplex DNA

Crystal structure of a DNA duplex cross-linked by 6-thioguanine–6-thioguanine disulfides: reversible formation and cleavage catalyzed by Cu(ii) ions and glutathione

Herein, we determined the crystal structure of a DNA duplex containing consecutive 6-thioguanine–6-thioguanine disulfides. The disulfide bonds were reversibly formed and cleaved in the presence of Cu(ii) ions and glutathione. To our knowledge, this is the first reaction in which metal ions efficiently accelerated disulfide bond formation between thio-bases in duplexes.

The crystal structure of a DNA duplex cross-linked by 6-thioguanine–6-thioguanine disulfides has been solved.

Reversibly locked thionucleobase pairs in DNA to study base flipping enzymes

Covalently interstrand cross-linked DNA is an interesting tool to study DNA binding proteins that locally open up the DNA duplex by flipping single bases out of the DNA helix or melting whole stretches of base pairs to perform their function. The ideal DNA cross-link to study protein–DNA interactions should be specific and easy to synthesize, be stable during protein binding experiments, have a short covalent linker to avoid steric hindrance of protein binding, and should be available as a mimic for both A/T and G/C base pairs to cover all possible binding specificities. Several covalent interstrand cross-links have been described in the literature, but most of them fall short of at least one of the above criteria. We developed an efficient method to site-specifically and reversibly cross-link thionucleoside base pairs in synthetic duplex oligodeoxynucleotides by bisalkylation with 1,2-diiodoethane resulting in an ethylene-bridged base pair. Both linked A/T and G/C base pair analogs can conveniently be prepared which allows studying any base pair-opening enzyme regardless of its sequence specificity. The cross-link is stable in the absence of reducing agents but the linker can be quickly and tracelessly removed by the addition of thiol reagents like dithiothreitol. This property makes the cross-linking reaction fully reversible and allows for a switching of the linked base pair from locked to unlocked during biochemical experiments. Using the DNA methyltransferase from Thermus aquaticus (M.TaqI) as example, we demonstrate that the presented cross-linked DNA with an ethylene-linked A/T base pair analog at the target position is a useful tool to determine the base-flipping equilibrium constant of a base-flipping enzyme which lies mostly on the extrahelical side for M.TaqI.

Synthesis and characterization of a DNA analogue stabilized by mercapto C-nucleoside induced disulfide bonding

A redox-active nucleobase analogue of a nucleotide was synthesized and incorporated into DNA using phosphoramidite chemistry. An analogue-containing oligonucleotide in the absence of a reducing reagent formed a stable duplex with a substantially higher melting temperature compared to that of a standard DNA duplex of the same length.