Abstract
We have recently shown that under superhelical stress and/or acid pH the homopurine-homopyrimidine tracts conforming to the mirror symmetry (H palindromes) form a novel DNA structure, the H form1–4. According to our model, the H form includes (1) a triplex formed by half of the purine strand and by the homopyrimidine hairpin and (2) the unstructured other half of the purine strand. We used four specially designed sequences to demonstrate that, in accordance with our model, the mirror symmetry is essential for facile formation of the H form detected by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis4. Here we report that, under conditions favouring the H-form extrusion, guanines of the 3′ half of the purine strand are protected against alkylation by dimethylsulphate, whereas adenines of the 5′ half of the purine strand react with diethyl pyrocarbonate. These data indicate that the 3′ half of the homopurine strand is within the triplex whereas the 5′ half is unstructured, in full agreement with our model.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lyamichev, V. I., Mirkin, S. M. & Frank-Kamenetskii, M. D. J. biomol. Struct. Dyn. 3, 327–338 (1985).
Lyamichev, V. I., Mirkin, S. M. & Frank-Kamenetskii, M. D. J. biomol. Struct. Dyn. 3, 667–669 (1986).
Lyamichev, V. L., Mirkin, S. M. & Frank-Kamenetskii, M. D. J. biomol. Struct. Dyn. 5, 275–282 (1987).
Mirkin, S. M. et al. Nature 330, 495–497 (1987).
Maxam, A. M. & Gilbert, W. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 74, 560–564 (1977).
Johnston, B. H. & Rich, A. Cell 42, 713–724 (1985).
Herr, W. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 82, 8009–8013 (1985).
Scholten, P. M. & Nordheim, A. Nucleic Acids Res. 14, 3981–3993 (1986).
Furlong, J. S. & Lilley, D. M. J. Nucleic Acids Res. 14, 3995–4007 (1986).
Pulleyblank, D. E., Haniford, D. B. & Morgan, A. R. Cell 42, 271–280 (1985).
Evans, T. & Efstratiadis, A. J. biol. Chem. 261, 14771–14780 (1986).
Vologodskii, A. V., Lukashin, A. V., Anshelevich, V. V. & Frank-Kamenetskii, M. D. Nucleic Acids Res. 6, 967–982 (1979).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Voloshin, O., Mirkin, S., Lyamichev, V. et al. Chemical probing of homopurine-homopyrimidine mirror repeats in supercoiled DNA. Nature 333, 475–476 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/333475a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/333475a0
This article is cited by
-
Dynamic alternative DNA structures in biology and disease
Nature Reviews Genetics (2023)
-
High-throughput techniques enable advances in the roles of DNA and RNA secondary structures in transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulation
Genome Biology (2022)
-
Regulation of DNA replication by homopurine/homopyrimidine sequences
Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry (1996)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.