A thermodynamic approach for the targeting of nucleic acid structures using their complementary single strands.

The main focus of our investigations is to further our understanding of the physicochemical properties of nucleic acid structures. We report on a thermodynamic approach to study the reaction of a variety of intramolecular nucleic acid structures with their respective complementary strands. Specifically, we have used a combination of isothermal titration (ITC) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and spectroscopy techniques to determine standard thermodynamic profiles for the reaction of a triplex, G-quadruplex, hairpin loops, pseudoknot, and three-arm junctions with their complementary strands.