NMR Screen Reveals the Diverse Structural Landscape of a G-Quadruplex Library.

G-quadruplexes are noncanonical nucleic acid structures formed by stacked guanosine tetrads. Despite their functional and structural diversity, a single consensus model is typically used to describe sequences with the potential to form G-quadruplex structures. We are interested in developing more specific sequence models for G-quadruplexes.

Secondary Structure Libraries for Artificial Evolution Experiments.

Methods of artificial evolution such as SELEX and in vitro selection have made it possible to isolate RNA and DNA motifs with a wide range of functions from large random sequence libraries. Once the primary sequence of a functional motif is known, the sequence space around it can be comprehensively explored using a combination of random mutagenesis and selection. However, methods to explore the sequence space of a secondary structure are not as well characterized.

Overlapping but distinct: a new model for G-quadruplex biochemical specificity.

G-quadruplexes are noncanonical nucleic acid structures formed by stacked guanine tetrads. They are capable of a range of functions and thought to play widespread biological roles. This diversity raises an important question: what determines the biochemical specificity of G-quadruplex structures? The answer is particularly important from the perspective of biological regulation because genomes can contain hundreds of thousands of G-quadruplexes with a range of functions.

Local atomic arrangement in LaCuAl and LaAuAl by NMR and density functional theory.

CeCuAl and CeAuAl, crystallizing in the non-centrosymmetric BaNiSn tetragonal structure, are known mainly for their unusual neutron scattering spectra involving additional excitations ascribed to vibron quasi-bound quantum state in CeCuAl and anti-crossing of phonon and crystal field excitations in CeAuAl. In this work, we present results of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on their lanthanum analogues-[Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. The character of NMR spectra of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and Cu measured in [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] is dominated by electric quadrupole interaction.