Enhanced cooperative binding of oligonucleotides to form DNA duplexes mediated by metal ion chelation.

Metal chelating iminodiacetic acid moieties were appended to abutting ends of two 9-mer oligonucleotides designed to hybridize contiguously on an 18-mer target. Chelation of 1 equivalent of Gd3+ cooperatively increases affinities of the oligonucleotides to the single stranded DNA target as evidenced by a 15 degrees C increase in Tm of the complex.