PNNL

Abstract

DNA curvature but no single model has been able to explain all the experimental data. An intriguing observation is that AnTn segments ligated in phase exhibit retarded migration in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) but TnAn segments do not. We have determined a high-resolution structure of a 16 base-pair DNA oligomer [d(CGAGGTTTAAACCTCG)2] containing a T3A3 tract. The refinement included residual dipolar coupling (RDC) restraints. A radius of curvature, Rc, analysis was used to measure the overall bending in the molecule. A plot of the helical axis reference points showed a sigmoidal shape indicating a discontinuity at the central TpA step in the overall curvature. Because of the length of the 16mer it was possible to accurately measure Rc for the two halves of the molecule centered about the TpA step. The Rc for the overall molecule (Rc=128 nm) is large, i.e. a low overall magnitude of global bending, whereas the Rc for the two halves of the molecule (Rc=72 nm) is small indicating a much larger magnitude of localized bending. However the direction of bending in the two halves is in partial opposition leading to cancellation of the overall bending. This indicates that TnAn-containing DNA sequences are strongly and multiply bent locally, but are nearly straight globally which is consistent with PAGE results. The RDC refined structure lacked anomalous features present in NOE-only structures indicating the RDC and NOE measurements have a different sensitivity to conformational dynamics at the central TpA step. Because of its increased length and refinement using RDC restraints, the structure of the 16mer reported here provides new insight into the structural origins of the enigmatic PAGE behavior of AnTn and TnAn tracts and the large amplitude, slow base dynamics observed at TpA steps.