Periodicity in residual dipolar couplings and nucleic acid structures

The periodicity in nucleic acid duplex structures is shown to be correlated to the periodicity in residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) in the form of an "RDC wave". This "RDC wave" is characteristic of the alignment of the duplex in the magnetic field, and hence fitting of the data allows the duplex global orientation (, Phi) to be extracted. Further, because the "RDC wave" is fit as a data set of a corresponding secondary structure element, the degeneracy problem is greatly reduced. Consequently, with the global orientation (, Phi) determined, local bond vector conformations are defined. The fit is demonstrated in the examples of the imino RDCs of the negative regulator of splicing RNA fragment (NRS23) and for the C1'H1' RDCs of the Dickerson dodecamer.     

The effect of methylation on the hydrogen-bonding and stacking interaction of nucleic acid bases

Methylated nucleosides play an important role in DNA/RNA function, and may affect republication by interrupting the base-pairing and base-stacking. In order to investigate the effect of methylation on the interaction between nucleic acid bases, this work presents the hydrogen-bonding and stacking interactions between 5-methylcytosine and guanine (G), cytosine (C) and G, 1-methyladenine and thymine (T), as well as adenine and T. Geometry optimization and potential energy surface scan have been performed for the involved complexes by MP2 calculations. The interaction energies, which were corrected for the basis-set superposition error by the full Boys–Bernardi counterpoise correction scheme, were used to evaluate the interaction intensity of these nucleic acid bases. The atoms in molecules theory and natural bond orbital analysis have been performed to study the hydrogen bonds in these complexes. The result shows that the methyl substitute contributes the stability to these complexes because it enhances either the hydrogen bonding or the staking interaction between nucleic acid bases studied.     

Using internal and collective variables in Monte Carlo simulations of nucleic acid structures: chain breakage/closure algorithm and associated Jacobians

This article describes a method for solving the geometric closure problem for simplified models of nucleic acid structures by using the constant bond lengths approximation. The resulting chain breakage/closure equations, formulated in the space of variable torsion and bond angles, are easy to solve, and have only two solutions. The analytical simplicity is in contrast with the high complexity of the closure problem in the torsion angle space with at most 16 solutions, which has been dealt with by several authors and was solved analytically by Wu and Deem (J. Chem. Phys. 1999, 111, 6625). The discussion on the choice of variables and associated Jacobians is focussed on the question of how conformational equilibration is affected in Monte Carlo simulations of molecular systems. In addition to the closure of the phosphate backbone, it is necessary to also solve the closure problem for the five-membered flexible furanose sugar ring. Explicit closure equations and the resulting Jacobians are given both for the complete four-variable model of the furanose ring and simulations in the phase-amplitude space of the five-membered ring, which are based on the approximate two-variable model of furanose introduced by Gabb et al. (J. Comput. Chem. 1995, 16, 667). The suggested closure algorithm can be combined with collective variables defined by translations and rotations of the monomeric nucleotide units. In comparison with simple internal coordinate moves, the resulting concerted moves describe local structural changes that have high acceptance rates and enable fast conformational equilibration. Appropriate molecular models are put forward for prospective Monte Carlo simulations of nucleic acids, but can be easily adapted to other biomolecular systems, such as proteins and lipid structures in biological membranes.     

NUPACK: Analysis and design of nucleic acid systems

The Nucleic Acid Package (NUPACK) is a growing software suite for the analysis and design of nucleic acid systems. The NUPACK web server ( http://www.nupack.org ) currently enables:

• Analysis: thermodynamic analysis of dilute solutions of interacting nucleic acid strands.
• Design: sequence design for complexes of nucleic acid strands intended to adopt a target secondary structure at equilibrium.
• Utilities: evaluation, display, and annotation of equilibrium properties of a complex of nucleic acid strands.

NUPACK algorithms are formulated in terms of nucleic acid secondary structure. In most cases, pseudoknots are excluded from the structural ensemble. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010     

Hydrogen-bonding-induced shifts of the excitation energies in nucleic acid bases: an interplay between electrostatic and electron density overlap effects

The theoretically calculated dimerization-induced shifts of the lowest excitation energies in two model systems, adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine base pairs, are analyzed. The applied formalism is based on first principles and allows one to study the influence of the microscopic environment of a given molecule on its ground- [Wesolowski, T. A.; Warshel, A. J. Phys. Chem. 1993, 97, 8050] and excited-state [Casida, M. E.; Wesolowski, T. A. Int. J. Quantum Chem. 2004, 96, 577] properties. The assessment of the relative importance of such effects as (a) Coulomb interactions, (b) orbital interactions, (c) electronic polarization of the environment, and (d) electron density overlap effects is straightforward in this formalism. In the applied formalism, electron density overlap effects can be further decomposed into the exchange-correlation component which provides a small attractive contribution and the repulsive kinetic energy-dependent component. It is shown that the shifts can be attributed to the electrostatic interactions and the repulsive overlap-dependent term in the embedding potential. The electronic polarization of the environment plays a significant role (up to 30% of the total shift) only in transitions involving the orbitals localized on hydrogen bond donor groups. For all analyzed shifts, the contribution of the intermolecular orbital interactions is negligible. The analysis of this work provides strong evidence supporting the use of the widely applied embedding-molecule strategy in computational studies of chromophores in a condensed phase even in such cases where only one end of the hydrogen bond is included in the quantum mechanical part.     

Side chain homologation of alanyl peptide nucleic acids: pairing selectivity and stacking

Alanyl peptide nucleic acids (alanyl-PNAs) are oligomers based on a regular peptide backbone with alternating configuration of the amino acids. All side chains are modified by covalently linked nucleobases. Alanyl-PNAs form very rigid, well defined, and linear double strands based on hydrogen bonding of complementary strands, stacking, and solvation. Side chain homology was examined by comparing a methylene linker (alanyl-PNA) with an ethylene linker (homoalanyl-PNA), a trimethylene linker (norvalyl-PNA), and PNA sequences with mixed linker length between nucleobase and backbone. Side chain homology in combination with a linear double strand topology turned out to be valuable in order to selectively manipulate pairing selectivity (pairing mode) and base pair stacking.     

At nonzero temperatures, stacked structures of methylated nucleic acid base pairs and microhydrated nonmethylated nucleic acid base pairs are favored over planar hydrogen-bonded structures: a molecular dynamics simulations study

The dynamic structure of all ten possible nucleic acid (NA) base pairs and methylated NA base pairs hydrated by a small number of water molecules (from 1 to 16) was determined by using molecular dynamics simulations in the NVE microcanonical and NVT canonical ensembles with the Cornell force field (W. D. Cornell, P. Cieplak, C. I. Bayly, I. R. Gould, K. M. Merz, D. M. Ferguson, D. C. Spellmeyer, T. Fox, J. E. Caldwell, P. Kollman, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1995, 117, 5179). The presence of one water molecule does not affect the structure of any hydrogen-bonded (H-bonded) nonmethylated base pair. An equal population of H-bonded and stacked structures of adenine...adenine, adenine...guanine and adenine... thymine pairs is reached if as few as two water molecules are present, while obtaining equal populations of these structures in the case of adenine...cytosine, cytosine...thymine, guanine... guanine and guanine...thymine required the presence of four water molecules, and in the case of guanine...cytosine, six. A comparable population of planar, H-bonded and stacked structures for cytosine...cytosine and thymine... thymine base pairs was only obtained if at least eight water molecules hydrated a pair. Methylation of bases changed the situation dramatically and stacked structures were favoured over H-bonded ones even in the absence of water molecules in most cases. Only in the case of methyl cytosine...methyl cytosine, methyl guanine...methyl guanine and methyl guanine...methyl cytosine pairs were two, two or six water molecules, respectively, needed in order to obtain a comparable population of planar, H-bonded and stacked structures. We believe that these results give clear evidence that the preferred stacked structure of NA base pairs in the microhydrated environment, and also apparently in a regular solvent, is due to the hydrophilic interaction of a small number of water molecules. In the case of methylated bases, it is also due to the fact that the hydrogen atoms most suitable for the formation of H-bonds have been replaced by a methyl group. A preferred stacked structure is, thus, not due to a hydrophobic interaction between a large bulk of water molecules and the base pair, as believed.     

Homo-DNA templated chemistry and its application to nucleic acid sensing

We have investigated the homo-DNA templated Staudinger reduction of the profluorophore rhodamine azide and have applied this reaction to the detection of natural DNA with a hybrid homo-DNA/DNA molecular beacon. In this system the sensing and the reporting unit are bioorthogonal to each other which facilitates sequence design and increases fidelity.     

An algorithm for computing nucleic acid base-pairing probabilities including pseudoknots

Given a nucleic acid sequence, a recent algorithm allows the calculation of the partition function over secondary structure space including a class of physically relevant pseudoknots. Here, we present a method for computing base-pairing probabilities starting from the output of this partition function algorithm. The approach relies on the calculation of recursion probabilities that are computed by backtracking through the partition function algorithm, applying a particular transformation at each step. This transformation is applicable to any partition function algorithm that follows the same basic dynamic programming paradigm. Base-pairing probabilities are useful for analyzing the equilibrium ensemble properties of natural and engineered nucleic acids, as demonstrated for a human telomerase RNA and a synthetic DNA nanostructure.     

核酸等温扩增技术在电化学生物传感器中的应用

生物分子检测在临床诊断、基因治疗、基因突变分析等方面变得日益重要,因而,建立简单、快速、灵敏的检测方法具有重要意义。近年,电化学生物传感器因其简单、便携、易操作、成本低等优势在生物分子检测的研究中备受关注。为了提高检测方法的灵敏度,不同的核酸等温扩增技术被应用于电化学生物传感器的构建中。本文简单介绍了电化学生物传感器的工作原理,着重综述了几种主要应用于电化学传感器中的核酸等温扩增技术,同时比较了各方法的优缺点。     

Design and stereoselective synthesis of four peptide nucleic acid monomers with cyclic structures in backbone

Four isomers of the monomer of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) were derived from (2S,4R)‐4‐hydroxyproline; they had different stereochemistries at the C² and C⁴ positions in the pyrrolidine ring. These different backbone conformations corresponding to four different stereochemistries were realized through a combination of inversions at the C² and the C⁴ positions in pyrrolidine ring. The obtained backbone frameworks were reacted with N‐benzoyl thymine to give the corresponding PNA monomers. Spectroscopic comparison of the resultant monomers confirmed their stereochemistries. J. Heterocyclic Chem., (2011).     

Electronic structures of the ground state and excited singlet states of nucleic acid bases

The self-consistent field (SCF) method is used in the semiempirical approximation (SA) with allowance for singly excited configurations to derive the ground state and singlet excited states for five nucleic acid bases (NAB). Empirical values are used for the nondiagonal elements of the matrix for the two-electron Coulomb integrals. The methyl group in thymine is allowed for via an induction model. Theoretical values are given for the energies of the first four electronic transitions for each base. The locations of these agree well with spectroscopic data. The energies of the first two transitions in adenine are found to be very similar when allowance is made for configuration interaction, so the first absorption band of adenine arises from overlap of two transitions.     

A partition function algorithm for nucleic acid secondary structure including pseudoknots

Nucleic acid secondary structure models usually exclude pseudoknots due to the difficulty of treating these nonnested structures efficiently in structure prediction and partition function algorithms. Here, the standard secondary structure energy model is extended to include the most physically relevant pseudoknots. We describe an O(N(5)) dynamic programming algorithm, where N is the length of the strand, for computing the partition function and minimum energy structure over this class of secondary structures. Hence, it is possible to determine the probability of sampling the lowest energy structure, or any other structure of particular interest. This capability motivates the use of the partition function for the design of DNA or RNA molecules for bioengineering applications.     

Ab initio molecular orbital study on the pairing and stacking interactions between nucleic acid bases in relation to the biological activities

Ab initio molecular orbital calculations were performed on the pairing and stacking interaction energies between bases in nucleic acids. Using these values we could explain the biologically important phenomena well. Thus the fact that O⁶-methylguanine (which is formed in small amounts) is more promutagenic than N₇-methylguanine (which is formed in larger amounts) could be explained by the difference in pairing interaction energies for these alkylguanines. To clarify the detailed mechanism of mutation induced by a base analogue (2-aminopurine) the interaction energy for the 2-aminopurine-cytosine pair was calculated by taking into account the tautomeric conversion of base and the base analogue. It was concluded that the base pair formed as an intermediate between the normal form of 2-aminopurine and the imino tautomer of cytosine has an important role in inducing the mutation by 2-aminopurine. The stacking interaction energy was found to be a principal factor in determining the conformation of nucleic acids, and it predicted the preference for the A-form or B-form of the deoxyoligonucleotides well. The stacking interaction energy was resolved into its components, and it was shown that electrostatic energy was base sequence-dependent, whereas the overall stability of the stacked polymers was largely dependent on the dispersion energy.     

Locked nucleic acid (LNA) recognition of RNA: NMR solution structures of LNA:RNA hybrids

Locked nucleic acids (LNAs) containing one or more 2'-O,4'-C-methylene-linked bicyclic ribonucleoside monomers possess a number of the prerequisites of an effective antisense oligonucleotide, e.g. unprecedented helical thermostability when hybridized with cognate RNA and DNA. To acquire a detailed understanding of the structural features of LNA giving rise to its remarkable properties, we have conducted structural studies by use of NMR spectroscopy and now report high-resolution structures of two LNA:RNA hybrids, the LNA strands being d(5'-CTGAT(L)ATGC-3') and d(5'-CT(L)GAT(L)AT(L)GC-3'), respectively, T(L) denoting a modified LNA monomer with a thymine base, along with the unmodified DNA:RNA hybrid. In the structures, the LNA nucleotides are positioned as to partake in base stacking and Watson-Crick base pairing, and with the inclusion of LNA nucleotides, we observe a progressive change in duplex geometry toward an A-like duplex structure. As such, with the inclusion of three LNA nucleotides, the hybrid adopts an almost canonical A-type duplex geometry, and thus it appears that the number of modifications has reached a saturation level with respect to structural changes, and that further incorporations would furnish only minute changes in the duplex structure. We attempt to rationalize the conformational steering induced by the LNA nucleotides by suggesting that the change in electronic density at the brim of the minor groove, introduced by the LNA modification, is causing an alteration of the pseudorotational profile of the 3'-flanking nucleotide, thus shifting this sugar equilibrium toward N-type conformation.     

The alpha-helical peptide nucleic acid concept: merger of peptide secondary structure and codified nucleic acid recognition

A novel platform for nucleic acid recognition that integrates the alpha-helix secondary structure of peptides with the codified base-pairing capability of nucleic acids is reported. The resulting alpha-helical peptide nucleic acids (alpha PNAs) are composed of a repeating tetrapeptidyl unit, aa(1)-aa(2)-aa(3)-Ser(B), where aa(1) through aa(3) represent generic ancillary amino acids and B = nucleobases linked to Ser via a methylene bridge. Effective syntheses of constituent Fmoc-protected nucleoamino acids (Fmoc-Ser(B)-OH, where B = thymine, cytosine, and uracil) are described along with a protocol for the solid-phase synthesis of 21mer alpha PNAs containing five such nucleobases. By varying the ancillary amino acids, two distinct classes of alpha PNAs were constructed, having a net charge of -1 or +6, respectively, at physiological pH. The modular nature of the alpha PNA platform was illustrated by the synthesis of symmetrical disulfide-bridged alpha PNA dimers containing 10 nucleobases. Hybridization of these alpha PNAs with ssDNA has been examined by thermal denaturation, gel electrophoresis, and circular dichroism (CD) and the data indicated that alpha PNA binds to ssDNA in a cooperative manner with high affinity and sequence specificity. In general, b2 alpha PNAs bind faster and more strongly with ssDNA than do the corresponding b1 alpha PNAs. Parallel alpha PNA-DNA complexes are more stable than their antiparallel counterparts. CD studies also revealed that the hybridization event involves the folding of both species into their helical conformations. Finally, NMR experiments provided conclusive evidence of Watson-Crick base pairing in alpha PNA-ssDNA hybrids.