Unfolding of DNA quadruplexes induced by HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein
The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 nucleocapsid protein (NC) is a nucleic acid chaperone that catalyzes the rearrangement of nucleic acids into their thermodynamically most stable structures. In the present study, a combination of optical and thermodynamic techniques were used to characterize t...
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Published in | Nucleic acids research Vol. 33; no. 14; pp. 4395 - 4403 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Oxford University Press
01.01.2005
Oxford Publishing Limited (England) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 nucleocapsid protein (NC) is a nucleic acid chaperone that catalyzes the rearrangement of nucleic acids into their thermodynamically most stable structures. In the present study, a combination of optical and thermodynamic techniques were used to characterize the influence of NC on the secondary structure, thermal stability and energetics of monomolecular DNA quadruplexes formed by the sequence d(GGTTGGTGTGGTTGG) in the presence of K+ or Sr2+. Circular dichroism studies demonstrate that NC effectively unfolds the quadruplexes. Studies carried out with NC variants suggest that destabilization is mediated by the zinc fingers of NC. Calorimetric studies reveal that NC destabilization is enthalpic in origin, probably owing to unstacking of the G-quartets upon protein binding. In contrast, parallel studies performed on a related DNA duplex reveal that under conditions where NC readily destabilizes and unfolds the quadruplexes, its effect on the DNA duplex is much less pronounced. The differences in NC's ability to destabilize quadruplex versus duplex is in accordance with the higher ΔG of melting for the latter, and with the inverse correlation between nucleic acid stability and the destabilizing activity of NC. |
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Bibliography: | To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 612 624 5954; Fax: +1 612 626 7431; Email: bkankia@umn.edu local:gki741 ark:/67375/HXZ-K7TBB015-3 istex:94F6B43C7D9E0F1B44E171857192AD5760C5E08A ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 DDBJ/EMBL/Genbank accession no. NC_002572 |
ISSN: | 0305-1048 1362-4962 |
DOI: | 10.1093/nar/gki741 |