Spectroscopic Properties of Two 5′-(4-Dimethylamino)Azobenzene Conjugated G-Quadruplex Forming Oligonucleotides

oleh: Concetta Imperatore, Antonio Varriale, Elisa Rivieccio, Angela Pennacchio, Maria Staiano, Sabato D’Auria, Marcello Casertano, Carlo Altucci, Mohammadhassan Valadan, Manjot Singh, Marialuisa Menna, Michela Varra

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2020-09-01

Deskripsi

The synthesis of two 5′-end (4-dimethylamino)azobenzene conjugated G-quadruplex forming aptamers, the thrombin binding aptamer (TBA) and the HIV-1 integrase aptamer (T30695), was performed. Their structural behavior was investigated by means of UV, CD, fluorescence spectroscopy, and gel electrophoresis techniques in K<sup>+</sup>-containing buffers and water-ethanol blends. Particularly, we observed that the presence of the 5′-(4-dimethylamino)azobenzene moiety leads TBA to form multimers instead of the typical monomolecular chair-like G-quadruplex and almost hampers T30695 G-quadruplex monomers to dimerize. Fluorescence studies evidenced that both the conjugated G-quadruplexes possess unique fluorescence features when excited at wavelengths corresponding to the UV absorption of the conjugated moiety. Furthermore, a preliminary investigation of the trans-cis conversion of the dye incorporated at the 5′-end of TBA and T30695 showed that, unlike the free dye, in K<sup>+</sup>-containing water-ethanol-triethylamine blend the trans-to-cis conversion was almost undetectable by means of a standard UV spectrophotometer.