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Backbone-free duplex-stacked monomer nucleic acids exhibiting Watson–Crick selectivity

We demonstrate that nucleic acid (NA) mononucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs and rNTPs), at sufficiently high concentration and low temperature in aqueous solution, can exhibit a phase transition in which chromonic columnar liquid crystal ordering spontaneously appears. Remarkably, this polymer-free st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2018-08, Vol.115 (33), p.E7658-E7664
Main Authors: Smith, Gregory P., Fraccia, Tommaso P., Todisco, Marco, Zanchetta, Giuliano, Zhu, Chenhui, Hayden, Emily, Bellini, Tommaso, Clark, Noel A.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We demonstrate that nucleic acid (NA) mononucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs and rNTPs), at sufficiently high concentration and low temperature in aqueous solution, can exhibit a phase transition in which chromonic columnar liquid crystal ordering spontaneously appears. Remarkably, this polymer-free state exhibits, in a self-assembly of NA monomers, the key structural elements of biological nucleic acids, including: long-ranged duplex stacking of base pairs, complementarity-dependent partitioning of molecules, and Watson–Crick selectivity, such that, among all solutions of adenosine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine NTPs and their binary mixtures, duplex columnar ordering is most stable in the A-T and C-G combinations.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1721369115