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Biological aspects of DNA/RNA quadruplexes
Author(s) -
Shafer Richard H.,
Smirnov Ivan
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0282(2000/2001)56:3<209::aid-bip10018>3.0.co;2-y
Subject(s) - chemistry , dna , rna , computational biology , g quadruplex , nucleic acid , biochemistry , gene , biology
Among the many unusual conformations of DNA and RNA, quadruplex structures, based on the guanine quartet, possess several unique properties. These properties, along with the general features of guanine quadruplexes, are described in the context of possible roles for these structures in biological systems. A variety of experimental observations supporting the notion that quadruplexes are important in vivo is presented, including proteins known to specifically bind to quadruplex structures, guanine‐rich DNA, and RNA sequences endowed with the potential for forming quartet‐based structures in telomeres and regulatory regions, such as gene promoters, quadruplexes as DNA aptamer folding motifs arising from in vitro selection experiments, and potential chemotherapeutic, quadruplex‐forming oligonucleotides. Taken together, all of these observations argue cogently not only for the presence of quadruplexes in biological systems but also for their significance in terms of their roles in various biological processes. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biopolymers (Nucleic Acid Sci) 56: 209–227, 2001