Structure, location and interactions of G-quadruplexes

Four-stranded G-rich DNA structures called G-quadruplexes have been the subject of increasing interest recently. Experimental and computational techniques have been used to implicate them in important biological processes such as transcription and translation. In this minireview, I discuss how they form, what structures they adopt and with what stability. I then discuss the computational approaches used to predict them on a genomic scale and how the information derived can be combined with experiments to understand their biological functions. Other minireviews in this series deal with G-quadruplex nucleic acids and human disease [Wu Y & Brosh RM Jr (2010) FEBS J] and making sense of G-quadruplex and i-motif function in oncogene promoters [Brooks TA et al. (2010) FEBS J].