Chemical Probe for Glycosidic Conformation in Telomeric DNAs

Abstract

Chemical modifications are powerful tools to probe nucleic acid structure and protein-nucleic acid interactions. Nucleic acids can be modified either randomly by a variety of chemical reagents or site-specifically with synthetic base analog substitutions. We report here the use of 8-bromodeoxyguanosine (8-Br-dG) as a modification that is directly sensitive to a dihedral angle. 8-Br-dG should prove useful as a chemical probe for the conformation about glycosidic bonds in unusual nucleic acid structures.

Additional Information

© 1994 American Chemical Society. Received December 8, 1993. The authors wish to thank B. Wang for the mass spectral analysis, performed at the MIT Mass Spectrometry Resource, supported by the NIH (RR-00317, to K. Biemann), and Julius Rebek for comments on the manuscript. J.L.B. was supported by the NIH Interdepartmental Biotechnology Program (GM-08334). This work was supported by grants from the NIH (GM-46314), Pfizer, Inc., and the Searle Scholars Program of the Chicago Community Trust.

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