Ewan K S McRae, Evan P Booy, Gay Pauline Padilla-Meier, Sean A McKenna
Guanine quadruplexes (G4s) are four-stranded secondary structures of nucleic acids which are stabilized by noncanonical hydrogen bonding systems between the nitrogenous bases as well as extensive base stacking, or pi-pi, interactions. Formation of these structures in either genomic DNA or cellular RNA has the potential to affect cell biology in many facets including telomere maintenance, transcription, alternate splicing, and translation. Consequently, G4s have become therapeutic targets and several small molecule compounds have been developed which can bind such structures, yet little is known about how G4s interact with their native protein binding partners...
2017: Journal of Nucleic Acids