Open AccessThe Helicity of a DNA-2’-Fluoro DNA Hybrid Duplex Structure
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of nanotechnology and nanomedicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2476-2334
DOI - 10.33140/ijnn/02/01/00005
Subject(s) - dna , duplex (building) , molecule , base pair , z dna , steric effects , chemistry , helicity , helix (gastropod) , crystallography , chemical physics , stereochemistry , physics , biology , biochemistry , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry , snail , ecology
Structural DNA nanotechnology is a system whereby branched DNA molecules are fashioned into objects, or 1D, 2D and 3D lattices, as well as nanomechanical devices. Normally, one is dealing with the usual B-form DNA molecule, but variations on this theme can lead to alterations in both the structures and the properties of the constructs. 2’-Fluoro DNA (FDNA), wherein one of the hydrogen atoms of the 2’ carbon is replaced by a fluorine atom, is a minimal steric perturbation on the structure of the DNA backbone. The helical structure of this duplex is of great interest for applications in structural DNA nanotechnology, because the DNA-FDNA hybrid assumes an A-form double helix, without the instabilities associated with RNA. Here we have used an atomic force microscopic method to estimate the helicity of DNA-FDNA hybrids, and we find that the structure contains 11.8 nucleotide pairs per helical turn with an error of ± 0.6 nucleotide pairs, similar to other A-form molecules.