Naturally occurring branched-chain polyamines induce a crosslinked meshwork structure in a giant DNA

Authors:
Open Access
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We studied the effect of branched-chain polyamines on the folding transition of genome-sized DNA molecules in aqueous solution by the use of single-molecule observation with fluorescence microcopy. Detailed morphological features of polyamine/DNA complexes were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM observations indicated that branched-chain polyamines tend to induce a characteristic change in the higher-order structure of DNA by forming bridges or crosslinks between the segments of a DNA molecule. In contrast, natural linear-chain polyamines cause a parallel alignment between DNA segments. Circular dichroism measurements revealed that branched-chain polyamines induce the A-form in the secondary structure of DNA, while linear-chain polyamines have only a minimum effect. This large difference in the effects of branched- and linear-chain polyamines is discussed in relation to the difference in the manner of binding of these polyamines to negatively charged double-stranded DNA.
Funding Information
  • JSPS, KAKENHI (15K08027)
  • JSPS, KAKENHI (25390038)

This publication has 57 references indexed in Scilit: