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Interactions between Flavins and Quadruplex Nucleic Acids
Author(s) -
Merkle Tobias,
Sinn Malte,
Hartig Jörg S.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.201500463
Subject(s) - nucleic acid , g quadruplex , riboswitch , flavin group , chemistry , biochemistry , intracellular , dna , transcription (linguistics) , biology , biophysics , rna , gene , stereochemistry , non coding rna , enzyme , linguistics , philosophy
Quadruplex nucleic acids are widespread in genomes. They influence processes such as transcription, translation, replication, recombination, and the regulation of gene expression. Several synthetic ligands have been demonstrated to target quadruplex nucleic acids. However, only very few metabolites have been reported to interact with quadruplexes. In principle, an intracellular metabolite that selectively binds to four‐stranded sequences could modulate quadruplex formation, stability, and thus functions in a riboswitch (or deoxyriboswitch) manner. Here we report quadruplex interactions with flavin derivatives such as FMN and FAD. The affinities were highest with parallel quadruplexes, with low (14–20 μ m ) dissociation constants. Taking into account combined intracellular flavin concentrations of 243 μ m in E. coli , the observed interactions in principle open up the possibility of flavin levels affecting gene expression and other processes by modulating quadruplex formation.