Abstract
Environments surrounding G-rich sequences remarkably affect the conformations of these structures. A proper evaluation system mimicking the crowded environment in a cell with macromolecules should be developed to perform structural and functional studies on G-quadruplexes. In this study, the topology and stability of a G-quadruplex formed by human telomeric repeat sequences were investigated in a macromolecule-crowded environment created by polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG200), tumor cell extract, and Xenopus laevis egg extract. The interactions between small molecules and telomeric G-quadruplexes were also evaluated in the different systems. The results suggested that the actual behavior of G-quadruplex structures in cells extract is quite different from that in the PEG crowding system, and proteins or other factors in extracts might play a very important role in G-quadruplex structures.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 439-447 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports |
Volume | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2016 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Cellular environment
- G-quadruplex
- Ligands
- Molecular crowding
- Stabilization
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Biochemistry