Data di Pubblicazione:
2018
Citazione:
Backbone-free duplex-stacked monomer nucleic acids exhibiting Watson–Crick selectivity / G.P. Smith, T.P. Fraccia, M. Todisco, G. Zanchetta, C. Zhu, E. Hayden, T. Bellini, N.A. Clark. - In: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. - ISSN 0027-8424. - 115:33(2018 Aug 14), pp. E7658-E7664. [10.1073/pnas.1721369115]
Abstract:
We demonstrate that nucleic acid (NA) mononucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs and rNTPs), at sufficiently high concentration and low temperature in aqueous solution, can exhibit a phase transition in which chromonic columnar liquid crystal ordering spontaneously appears. Remarkably, this polymer-free state exhibits, in a self-assembly of NA monomers, the key structural elements of biological nucleic acids, including: long-ranged duplex stacking of base pairs, complementarity-dependent partitioning of molecules, and Watson–Crick selectivity, such that, among all solutions of adenosine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine NTPs and their binary mixtures, duplex columnar ordering is most stable in the A-T and C-G combinations.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
Double helix; Liquid crystal; Nucleic acid; Nucleoside triphosphate; Prebiotic evolution; Hydrogen Bonding; Liquid Crystals; X-Ray Diffraction; Nucleic Acid Conformation; Multidisciplinary
Elenco autori:
G.P. Smith, T.P. Fraccia, M. Todisco, G. Zanchetta, C. Zhu, E. Hayden, T. Bellini, N.A. Clark
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