Thermodynamic analyses of the specific interaction between T:T mismatch base pair and mercury (II) cation: toward the efficient detection of single nucleotide polymorphism (1).

We examined the effect of mercury (II) cation on the thermal stability of heteroduplex and homoduplex. Addition of mercury (II) cation increased the melting temperature of heteroduplex containing T:T mismatch base pair by about 4 degrees C. The thermal stability of homoduplex and heteroduplexes containing other kinds of mismatch base pairs was not significantly changed by the addition of mercury (II) cation.

Promotion of triplex formation by morpholino modification: thermodynamic and kinetic studies.

We examined the effect of morpholino (MOR) backbone modification of triplex-forming oligonucleotide (TFO) on the pyrimidine motif triplex formation at neutral pH, a condition where pyrimidine motif triplexes are unstable. The binding constant of the pyrimidine motif triplex formation at pH 6.8 with MOR-modified TFO was approximately 60 times larger than that observed with unmodified TFO.