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Wittwer CT, Hemmert AC, Kent JO, Rejali NA. DNA melting analysis. Mol Aspects Med 2024; 97:101268. [PMID: 38489863 DOI: 10.1016/j.mam.2024.101268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2023] [Revised: 02/19/2024] [Accepted: 03/11/2024] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
Melting is a fundamental property of DNA that can be monitored by absorbance or fluorescence. PCR conveniently produces enough DNA to be directly monitored on real-time instruments with fluorescently labeled probes or dyes. Dyes monitor the entire PCR product, while probes focus on a specific locus within the amplicon. Advances in amplicon melting include high resolution instruments, saturating DNA dyes that better reveal multiple products, prediction programs for domain melting, barcode taxonomic identification, high speed microfluidic melting, and highly parallel digital melting. Most single base variants and small insertions or deletions can be genotyped by high resolution amplicon melting. High resolution melting also enables heterozygote scanning for any variant within a PCR product. A web application (uMelt, http://www.dna-utah.org) predicts amplicon melting curves with multiple domains, a useful tool for verifying intended products. Additional applications include methylation assessment, copy number determination and verification of sequence identity. When amplicon melting does not provide sufficient detail, unlabeled probes or snapback primers can be used instead of covalently labeled probes. DNA melting is a simple, inexpensive, and powerful tool with many research applications that is beginning to make its mark in clinical diagnostics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carl T Wittwer
- Department of Pathology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
| | | | - Jana O Kent
- Department of Pathology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
| | - Nick A Rejali
- Department of Pathology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
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2
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Lei Y, Xu D. Rapid Nucleic Acid Diagnostic Technology for Pandemic Diseases. Molecules 2024; 29:1527. [PMID: 38611806 PMCID: PMC11013254 DOI: 10.3390/molecules29071527] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2024] [Revised: 03/17/2024] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 04/14/2024] Open
Abstract
The recent global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has enormously promoted the development of diagnostic technology. To control the spread of pandemic diseases and achieve rapid screening of the population, ensuring that patients receive timely treatment, rapid diagnosis has become the top priority in the development of clinical technology. This review article aims to summarize the current rapid nucleic acid diagnostic technologies applied to pandemic disease diagnosis, from rapid extraction and rapid amplification to rapid detection. We also discuss future prospects in the development of rapid nucleic acid diagnostic technologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yu Lei
- CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China;
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China
| | - Dawei Xu
- CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China;
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3
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Todisco M, Ding D, Szostak JW. Transient states during the annealing of mismatched and bulged oligonucleotides. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:2174-2187. [PMID: 38348869 PMCID: PMC10954449 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Revised: 01/19/2024] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Oligonucleotide hybridization is crucial in various biological, prebiotic and nanotechnological processes, including gene regulation, non-enzymatic primer extension and DNA nanodevice assembly. Although extensive research has focused on the thermodynamics and kinetics of nucleic acid hybridization, the behavior of complex mixtures and the outcome of competition for target binding remain less well understood. In this study, we investigate the impact of mismatches and bulges in a 12 bp DNA or RNA duplex on its association (kon) and dissociation (koff) kinetics. We find that such defects have relatively small effects on the association kinetics, while the dissociation kinetics vary in a position-dependent manner by up to 6 orders of magnitude. Building upon this observation, we explored a competition scenario involving multiple oligonucleotides, and observed a transient low specificity of probe hybridization to fully versus partially complementary targets in solution. We characterize these long-lived metastable states and their evolution toward equilibrium, and show that sufficiently long-lived mis-paired duplexes can serve as substrates for prebiotically relevant chemical copying reactions. Our results suggest that transient low accuracy states may spontaneously emerge within all complex nucleic acid systems comprising a large enough number of competing strands, with potential repercussions for gene regulation in the realm of modern biology and the prebiotic preservation of genetic information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Todisco
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Dian Ding
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology and Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA
| | - Jack W Szostak
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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4
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de Oliveira Martins E, Weber G. Nearest-neighbour parametrization of DNA single, double and triple mismatches at low sodium concentration. Biophys Chem 2024; 306:107156. [PMID: 38157701 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpc.2023.107156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2023] [Revised: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 12/17/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
DNA mismatches, that is, base pairs different from the canonical AT and CG, are involved in numerous biological processes and can be a problem for technological applications such as PCR amplification. The nearest-neighbour (NN) model is the standard approach for predicting melting temperatures and is used in methods of secondary structure predictions and modelling of hybridization kinetics. However, despite its biological and technological importance, existing NN parameters that include DNA mismatches are incomplete, and those available were obtained from a limited set of melting temperature at high sodium concentration. To our knowledge, there is currently no NN set of parameters for up to three mismatches covering all configurations at low sodium concentrations. Here, we are applying the NN model to a large set of 4096 published melting temperatures, covering all combinations of single, double and triple mismatches. Dealing with such a large set of temperature is challenging in several ways, bringing new methodological problems. Here, optimizing a large number of 252 independent parameters has required the development of a new method where we readjust the seed parameters using the definition of the Gibbs free energy. The new parameters predict the training set within 1.1 °C and the validation set to 2.7 °C.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erik de Oliveira Martins
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil; Escola Politécnica, Centro Universitário Católica do Leste de Minas Gerais, 35170-056 Coronel Fabriciano, MG, Brazil
| | - Gerald Weber
- Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
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5
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Ashwood B, Jones MS, Radakovic A, Khanna S, Lee Y, Sachleben JR, Szostak JW, Ferguson AL, Tokmakoff A. Thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA and RNA dinucleotide hybridization to gaps and overhangs. Biophys J 2023; 122:3323-3339. [PMID: 37469144 PMCID: PMC10465710 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2023.07.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Revised: 06/27/2023] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Hybridization of short nucleic acid segments (<4 nt) to single-strand templates occurs as a critical intermediate in processes such as nonenzymatic nucleic acid replication and toehold-mediated strand displacement. These templates often contain adjacent duplex segments that stabilize base pairing with single-strand gaps or overhangs, but the thermodynamics and kinetics of hybridization in such contexts are poorly understood because of the experimental challenges of probing weak binding and rapid structural dynamics. Here we develop an approach to directly measure the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA and RNA dinucleotide dehybridization using steady-state and temperature-jump infrared spectroscopy. Our results suggest that dinucleotide binding is stabilized through coaxial stacking interactions with the adjacent duplex segments as well as from potential noncanonical base-pairing configurations and structural dynamics of gap and overhang templates revealed using molecular dynamics simulations. We measure timescales for dissociation ranging from 0.2-40 μs depending on the template and temperature. Dinucleotide hybridization and dehybridization involve a significant free energy barrier with characteristics resembling that of canonical oligonucleotides. Together, our work provides an initial step for predicting the stability and kinetics of hybridization between short nucleic acid segments and various templates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brennan Ashwood
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The James Franck Institute and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Michael S Jones
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | | | - Smayan Khanna
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Yumin Lee
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The James Franck Institute and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Joseph R Sachleben
- Biomolecular NMR Core Facility, Biological Sciences Division, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Jack W Szostak
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Andrew L Ferguson
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Andrei Tokmakoff
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The James Franck Institute and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
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6
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Ashwood B, Jones MS, Radakovic A, Khanna S, Lee Y, Sachleben JR, Szostak JW, Ferguson AL, Tokmakoff A. Direct monitoring of the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA and RNA dinucleotide dehybridization from gaps and overhangs. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.04.10.536266. [PMID: 37090657 PMCID: PMC10120721 DOI: 10.1101/2023.04.10.536266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/25/2023]
Abstract
Hybridization of short nucleic acid segments (<4 nucleotides) to single-strand templates occurs as a critical intermediate in processes such as non-enzymatic nucleic acid replication and toehold-mediated strand displacement. These templates often contain adjacent duplex segments that stabilize base pairing with single-strand gaps or overhangs, but the thermodynamics and kinetics of hybridization in such contexts are poorly understood due to experimental challenges of probing weak binding and rapid structural dynamics. Here we develop an approach to directly measure the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA and RNA dinucleotide dehybridization using steady-state and temperature-jump infrared spectroscopy. Our results suggest that dinucleotide binding is stabilized through coaxial stacking interactions with the adjacent duplex segments as well as from potential non-canonical base pairing configurations and structural dynamics of gap and overhang templates revealed using molecular dynamics simulations. We measure timescales for dissociation ranging from 0.2 to 40 µs depending on the template and temperature. Dinucleotide hybridization and dehybridization involves a significant free energy barrier with characteristics resembling that of canonical oligonucleotides. Together, our work provides an initial step for predicting the stability and kinetics of hybridization between short nucleic acid segments and various templates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brennan Ashwood
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
- The James Franck Institute and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57 Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
| | - Michael S Jones
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
| | | | - Smayan Khanna
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
| | - Yumin Lee
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
| | - Joseph R Sachleben
- Biomolecular NMR Core Facility, Biological Sciences Division, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
| | - Jack W Szostak
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
| | - Andrew L Ferguson
- Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
| | - Andrei Tokmakoff
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
- The James Franck Institute and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57 Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
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7
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Wittwer CT. Rapid Cycle and Extreme Polymerase Chain Reaction. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2621:257-266. [PMID: 37041449 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2950-5_14] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/13/2023]
Abstract
Rapid cycle polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifies DNA in 10-30 min, while extreme PCR is complete in less than 1 min. These methods do not sacrifice quality for speed; sensitivity, specificity, and yield are equivalent or better than conventional PCR. What is required (and not widely available) is rapid, accurate control of reaction temperature during cycling. Specificity improves with cycling speed, and efficiency can be maintained by increasing polymerase and primer concentrations. Speed is aided by simplicity, dyes that stain double-stranded DNA are less expensive than probes, and one of the simplest polymerases, the deletion mutant KlenTaq, is used throughout. Rapid amplification can be coupled with endpoint melting analysis to verify product identity. Instead of commercial master mixes, detailed formulations for reagents and master mixes compatible with rapid cycle and extreme PCR are described.
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8
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Ding F, Cocco S, Raj S, Manosas M, Nguyen T, Spiering M, Bensimon D, Allemand JF, Croquette V. Displacement and dissociation of oligonucleotides during DNA hairpin closure under strain. Nucleic Acids Res 2022; 50:12082-12093. [PMID: 36478056 PMCID: PMC9757040 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac1113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2022] [Revised: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The hybridization kinetic of an oligonucleotide to its template is a fundamental step in many biological processes such as replication arrest, CRISPR recognition, DNA sequencing, DNA origami, etc. Although single kinetic descriptions exist for special cases of this problem, there are no simple general prediction schemes. In this work, we have measured experimentally, with no fluorescent labelling, the displacement of an oligonucleotide from its substrate in two situations: one corresponding to oligonucleotide binding/unbinding on ssDNA and one in which the oligonucleotide is displaced by the refolding of a dsDNA fork. In this second situation, the fork is expelling the oligonucleotide thus significantly reducing its residence time. To account for our data in these two situations, we have constructed a mathematical model, based on the known nearest neighbour dinucleotide free energies, and provided a good estimate of the residence times of different oligonucleotides (DNA, RNA, LNA) of various lengths in different experimental conditions (force, temperature, buffer conditions, presence of mismatches, etc.). This study provides a foundation for the dynamics of oligonucleotide displacement, a process of importance in numerous biological and bioengineering contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fangyuan Ding
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92617, USA
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Center for Synthetic Biology, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, and Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Simona Cocco
- Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole normale supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
| | - Saurabh Raj
- Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110016, India
| | - Maria Manosas
- Small Biosystems Lab, Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Carrer de Martí i Franquès, 1, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
- Institut de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (IN2UB), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Thao Thi Thu Nguyen
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Michelle M Spiering
- Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
| | - David Bensimon
- Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole normale supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
- Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure (IBENS), CNRS, Inserm, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, F-75005, Paris, France
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Jean-François Allemand
- Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole normale supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
- Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure (IBENS), CNRS, Inserm, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, F-75005, Paris, France
| | - Vincent Croquette
- Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole normale supérieure, ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
- Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure (IBENS), CNRS, Inserm, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, F-75005, Paris, France
- ESPCI Paris, Université PSL, Paris, France
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9
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Todisco M, Szostak JW. Hybridization kinetics of out-of-equilibrium mixtures of short RNA oligonucleotides. Nucleic Acids Res 2022; 50:9647-9662. [PMID: 36099434 PMCID: PMC9508827 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac784] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Revised: 08/23/2022] [Accepted: 09/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Hybridization and strand displacement kinetics determine the evolution of the base paired configurations of mixtures of oligonucleotides over time. Although much attention has been focused on the thermodynamics of DNA and RNA base pairing in the scientific literature, much less work has been done on the time dependence of interactions involving multiple strands, especially in RNA. Here we provide a study of oligoribonucleotide interaction kinetics and show that it is possible to calculate the association, dissociation and strand displacement rates displayed by short oligonucleotides (5nt–12nt) that exhibit no expected secondary structure as simple functions of oligonucleotide length, CG content, ΔG of hybridization and ΔG of toehold binding. We then show that the resultant calculated kinetic parameters are consistent with the experimentally observed time dependent changes in concentrations of the different species present in mixtures of multiple competing RNA strands. We show that by changing the mixture composition, it is possible to create and tune kinetic traps that extend by orders of magnitude the typical sub-second hybridization timescale of two complementary oligonucleotides. We suggest that the slow equilibration of complex oligonucleotide mixtures may have facilitated the nonenzymatic replication of RNA during the origin of life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Todisco
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Molecular Biology and Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.,Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Jack W Szostak
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Molecular Biology and Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 185 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.,Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115, USA.,Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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