Journal
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue 6, Pages 582-+Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2017.29
Keywords
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Funding
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- National Science Foundation (NSF) under JSPS-NSF International Collaborations in Chemistry (ICC) [CHE-1415883]
- NSF [CHE-1609504]
- JSPS KAKENHI [24104002, 15H03837, 16K14033]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [24104002, 15H03837, 16K14033, 16H06356] Funding Source: KAKEN
- Division Of Chemistry
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1415883] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Molecular simulations suggest that the stability of a folded macromolecule increases in a confined space due to entropic effects. However, due to the interactions between the confined molecular structure and the walls of the container, clear-cut experimental evidence for this prediction is lacking. Here, using DNA origami nanocages, we show the pure effect of confined space on the property of individual human telomeric DNA G-quadruplexes. We induce targeted mechanical unfolding of the G-quadruplex while leaving the nanocage unperturbed. We find that the mechanical and thermodynamic stabilities of the G-quadruplex inside the nanocage increase with decreasing cage size. Compared to the case of diluted or molecularly crowded buffer solutions, the G-quadruplex inside the nanocage is significantly more stable, showing a 100 times faster folding rate. Our findings suggest the possibility of co-replicational or co-transcriptional folding of G-quadruplex inside the polymerase machinery in cells.
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