Title
Ethyl-substitutive Thioflavin T as a highly-specific fluorescence probe for detecting G-quadruplex structure
Author
Ai-jiao Guan, Xiu-Feng Zhang, Xin Sun, Qian Li, Jun-Feng Xiang, Li-Xia Wang, Ling Lan, Feng-Min Yang, Shu-Juan Xu, Xiao-Meng Guo, Ya-Lin Tang
Year
2018
Journal
Scientific Reports
Abstract
G-quadruplex has attracted considerable attention due to their prevalent distribution in functional genomic regions and transcripts, which can importantly influence biological processes such as regulation of telomere maintenance, gene transcription and gene translation. Artificial receptor study has been developed for accurate identification of G-quadruplex from DNA species, since it is important for the G-quadruplex related basic research, clinical diagnosis, and therapy. Herein, fluorescent dye ThT-E, a derivative of the known fluorescence probe Thioflavin T (ThT), was designed and synthesized to effectively differentiate various G-quadruplex structures from other nucleic acid forms. Compared with methyl groups in ThT, three ethyl groups were introduced to ThT-E, which leads to strengthened affinity, selectivity and little inducing effect on the G-quadruplex formation. More importantly, ThT-E could be served as a visual tool to directly differentiate G-quadruplex solution even with naked eyes under illumination of ultraviolet light. Thus, this probe reported herein may hold great promise for high-throughput assay to screen G-quadruplex, which may widely apply to G-quadruplex-based potential diagnosis and therapy.
Full Article
Instrument
J-815
Keywords
Circular dichroism, DNA structure, DNA folding, Chemical stability, Biochemistry