Differential Charging in Photoemission from Mercurated DNA Monolayers on Ferromagnetic Films

Spin-dependent and enantioselective electron-molecule scattering occurs in photoelectron transmission through chiral molecular films. This spin selectivity leads to electron spin filtering by molecular helices, with increasing magnitude concomitant with increasing numbers of helical turns. Using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, we measured spin-selective surface charging accompanying photoemission from ferromagnetic substrates functionalized with monolayers of mercurated DNA hairpins that constitute only one helical turn. Mercury ions bind specifically at thymine-thymine mismatches within self-hybridized single-stranded DNA, enabling precise control over the number and position of Hg²⁺ along the helical axis. Differential charging of the organic layers, manifested as substrate-magnetization-dependent photoionization energies, was observed for DNA hairpins containing Hg²⁺; no differences were measured for hairpin monolayers in the absence of Hg²⁺. Inversion of the DNA helical secondary structure at increased metal loading led to complementary inversion in spin selectivity. We attribute these results to increased scattering probabilities from relativistic enhancement of spin-orbit interactions in mercurated DNA.

Role of the backbone of nucleic acids in the stability of Hg2+-mediated canonical base pairs and thymine–thymine mispair: a DFT study

Metal-mediated base pairs have attracted attention in nucleic acid research and molecular devices. Herein, we report a systematic computational study on Hg²⁺-mediated base pairs with canonical and TT mispair dimers. The computed results revealed that the model _DTT_D (thymine–thymine with DNA backbone) mispair is more energetically favored than the canonical base pairs. The _DTTTT_D mispair dimer is more energetically stable by ∼36.0 kcal mol⁻¹ than the corresponding canonical _DATGC_D base pairs. The Hg⋯Hg metallophilic interaction was observed with the _DTTTT_D mispair and not the canonical base pairs. The _DATGC_D (adenine: thymine, guanine: cytosine) base pairs were significantly perturbed upon interaction with the mercury ion; however, the TTTT mispairs were aligned upon interaction with the Hg²⁺ ion. The _DTTTT_D mispair adopts a B-type conformation with proper alignment of its nucleobases along the axis. The MESP calculations showed a larger V_min value for the interacting nitrogen centers of the thymine nucleobase, supporting its stronger binding with the Hg²⁺ ion compared to the other nucleobases. The role of the backbone is crucial in nucleic acids to determine many useful properties, and PNAs have been exploited extensively in the literature. Thus, this study was further extended to metal-mediated PNA-containing dimer mispairs such as _DTTTT_P (thymine–thymine dimer model with hybrid DNA and PNA backbone) and _PTTTT_P (thymine–thymine dimer model with PNA backbone). The calculated results showed that the _PTTTT_P PNA mispair is thermodynamically more stable than the canonical dimers. The enthalpy calculated for _DTTTT_D and _PTTTT_P at the B3LYP-D3/6-31G* level of theory showed that _PTTTT_P is ∼3.0 kcal mol⁻¹ more stable than _DTTTT_D. The metallophilic interaction of Hg²⁺ ions in the _PTTTT_P mispair was not observed; however, the metal ions interact with the nitrogen of the thymine bases, presumably enhancing the stability of this mispair by strong electrostatic interactions. These interactions arise due to the P-type conformations of PNAs, which lack metallophilic interactions between the metal ions and can adopt a wider and more unwounded helix. The interaction of the mispair dimers with the explicit water molecules also showed a similar stability trend to that observed with the implicit solvation model. The metallophilic interaction (Hg⋯Hg) was found to be conserved in _DTTTT_D. The AIM analysis performed for these dimers revealed that the interactions are primarily electrostatic in nature. The UV-vis absorption spectra of the mispair systems calculated at the B3LYP-D3/6-31G* level of theory using the TD-DFT method in the aqueous phase suggested that the absorption maximum is located at a longer wavelength in the case of _PTTTT_P compared to the corresponding _DTTTT_D and can be a signature to identify the formation of metal-mediated nucleic acid systems.

Hg²⁺-mediated PNA–PNA mispair duplex (_PTTTT_P) is more energetically favoured compared to DNA–DNA mispair duplex (_DTTTT_D).

Highly sensitive and selective mercury sensor based on mismatched base pairing with dioxT

A highly selective and sensitive sensor for mercury was designed based on a new fluorescent nucleobase, dioxT. Its metal-sensing ability was investigated using mismatched dioxT-T and dioxT-C base pairing. The sensor exhibited a high sensitivity (quenching efficiency, 80%, 1 : 1 binding mode) and selectivity upon the addition of mercury ions.

A Highly Sensitive and Label-Free Microbead-Based ‘Turn-On’ Colorimetric Sensor for the Detection of Mercury(II) in Urine Using a Peroxidase-Like Split G-Quadruplex–Hemin DNAzyme

A highly sensitive and label-free microbead-based ‘turn-on’ assay was developed for the detection of Hg2+ in urine based on the Hg2+-mediated formation of intermolecular split G-quadruplex–hemin DNAzymes. In the presence of Hg2+, T–T mismatches between the two partial cDNA strands were stabilized by a T–Hg2+–T base pair, and can cause the G-rich sequences of the two oligonucleotides to associate to form a split G-quadruplex which is able to bind hemin to form the catalytically active G-quadruplex–hemin DNAzyme. This microbead-based ‘turn-on’ process allows the detection of Hg2+ in urine samples at concentrations as low as 0.5 pM. The relative standard deviation and recovery are 1.2–3.9 and 98.7–103.2%, respectively. The remarkable sensitivity for Hg2+ is mainly attributed to the enhanced mass transport ability that is inherent in homogeneous microbead-based assays. Compared with previous developments of intermolecular split G-quardruplex–hemin DNAzymes for the homogeneous detection of Hg2+ (the limit of detection was 19nM), a signal enhancement of ~1000 times is obtained when such an assay is performed on the surface of microbeads.

Interactions of Hg(ii) with oligonucleotides having thymine-thymine mispairs. Optimization of an impedimetric Hg(ii) sensor

The present work describes the effect of the number of thymine-thymine mispairs in single strand DNA probes on Hg(ii) interactions and further to develop a highly sensitive DNA based impedimetric sensor for Hg(ii) detection. To achieve this goal, the influence of the number of T-T mispairs on the signal response prompted by DNA-Hg(ii) binding interactions was examined on three designed DNA probes: 5'-OH-(CH₂)₆-S-S-(CH₂)₆-AGTCCACACGTTCCTTACGC-3', 5'-OH-(CH₂)₆-S-S-(CH₂)₆-AGTCCACATTTTCCTTTTGC-3', 5'-OH-(CH₂)₆-S-S-(CH₂)₆-AGTCCATTTTTTCCTTTTTT-3' having 2T-T, 4T-T and 6T-T mispairs with identical length, respectively. This study revealed that the number of T-T mispairs plays a critical role in maximizing the signal intensity of DNA-Hg(ii) binding interactions. Based on these results, DNA comprising maximum number of T-T mispairs was further utilized for construction of the Hg(ii) sensor, which exhibited a linear correlation between the change in charge transfer resistance (ΔR_CT) and the concentration of Hg(ii) over the range of 1.0 × 10^-5 M to 1.0 × 10^-10 M with a lower detection limit of 3.2 × 10^-11 M. The selectivity was tested against 12 different metal ions including Hg(ii). The ΔR_CT response from Hg(ii) is 3 times higher than the nearest competitor Pb(ii) and approximately 10 times than other ions. The potential application of such a robust and label-free DNA sensor was demonstrated by analyzing environmental samples collected from Lake Ontario.

Interaction between mercuric chloride and extracellular polymers of biofilm-forming mercury resistant marine bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis PW-05

The interaction mechanism of mercury (Hg²⁺) with extracellular polymers (EPS) produced from a mercury resistant marine bacteriumBacillus thuringiensisPW-05 was studied.

Structures, physicochemical properties, and applications of T–HgII–T, C–AgI–C, and other metallo-base-pairs

In this feature article, recent progress and future perspectives of metal-mediated base-pairs such as T–Hg(ii)–T and C–Ag(i)–C are presented.

Detection of mercury-TpT dinucleotide binding by Raman spectra: a computational study

The Hg(2+) ion stabilizes the thymine-thymine mismatched base pair and provides new ways of creating various DNA structures. Recently, such T-Hg-T binding was detected by the Raman spectroscopy. In this work, detailed differences in vibrational frequencies and Raman intensity patterns in the free TpT dinucleotide and its metal-mediated complex (TpT·Hg)(2) are interpreted on the basis of quantum chemical modeling. The computations verified specific marker Raman bands indicating the effect of mercury binding to DNA. Although the B3LYP functional well-describes the Raman frequencies, a dispersion correction had to be added for all atoms including mercury to obtain realistic geometry of the (TpT·Hg)(2) dimer. Only then, the DFT complex structure agreed with those obtained with the wave function-based MP2 method. The aqueous solvent modeled as a polarizable continuum had a minor effect on the dispersion interaction, but it stabilized conformations of the sugar and phosphate parts. A generalized definition of internal coordinate force field was introduced to monitor covalent bond mechanical strengthening and weakening upon the Hg(2+) binding. Induced vibrational frequency shifts were rationalized in terms of changes in electronic structure. The simulations thus also provided reliable insight into the complex structure and stability.

Thieno analogues of RNA nucleosides: a detailed theoretical study

We use first-principles density functional theory calculations to investigate the structural, energetic, bonding aspects, and optical properties of recently synthesized thieno-analogues of RNA nucleosides. The results are compared against the findings obtained for both the natural nucleosides as well as available experimental data. We find that the modified nucleosides form the hydrogen bonded Watson-Crick (WC) base pairing with similar H-bonding energy as obtained for the natural nucleosides. We have calculated and compared the charge transfer integrals for the H-bonded natural and thieno-modified nucleosides. We find that the thieno modification of these nucleosides strongly affects the charge transfer integrals due to the difference in extent of orbital delocalization in these two types of nucleosides. We also find that the degree of reduction of charge transfer integrals is larger for the H-bonded A-U pair than in the G-C pair. We also focus on the optical absorption properties of these thieno-modified nucleosides and their WC H-bonded base pairs in gas phase as well as with implicit water. Our calculated results show that the low energy peaks in the absorption spectra mainly arise because of the π-π* electronic transition for both the nucleosides, and the observed red shift for thieno-nucleosides compared to natural nucleosides are consistent with the calculated decrease in electronic gaps. Our results demonstrate that the thieno modification of natural nucleosides significantly modifies their electronic and optical properties, although the basic structural and bonding aspects remained the same. It also gives a microscopic understanding of the experimentally observed optical behaviors.

Detection of T-T mismatches using mass spectrometry: specific interactions of Hg(II) with oligonucleotides rich in thymine (T)

Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) was employed in a detailed study of the interactions of mercury dications with selected oligodeoxynucleotides rich and poor in thymine (T): d(5'-TT-3'), d(5'-TTT-3'), d(5'-TTTT-3'), d(5'-GG-3'), d(5'-CC-3'), d(5'-AA-3'), d(5'-GCTTGC-3'), d(5'-GTGCTC-3'), d(5'-GCATGC-3'), and d(5'-GCGCGC-3'). Specific interactions are observed for Hg(2+) with pure and mixed thymine sequences in which simultaneous bonding between two thymine units is indicated, and this is consistent with a model proposed in the literature in which Hg(2+) covalently coordinates to two thymines by replacing two N3 imino protons of the bases. The ESI-MS/MS measurements, combined with data on the thermal stability of mixed sequence hexadeoxynucleotides, indicate that mercury prefers thymines over the other binding sites in oligonucleotides both in solution and in the gas phase. These results point toward the effective use of Hg(2+) in the fast detection of mismatch base pairs incorporated in oligonucleotide duplexes and longer mixed DNA sequences using ESI-MS/MS.