Studies on Copper and Aβ-Induced Conformational Changes in CAG/CTG Trinucleotide Repeats Sequence.

DNA conformation and stability are critical for the normal cell functions, which control many cellular processes in life, such as replication, transcription, DNA repair, etc. The accumulation of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) and Copper (Cu) are the etiological factors for neurodegenerative diseases and hypothesized that they can cause DNA instability. In the current investigation, we studied copper and Aβ induced conformation and stability changes in CAG/CTG sequences and found alterations from B-DNA to altered B-conformation. Further, the interaction of the copper and Aβ with CAG/CTG sequences was studied by molecular docking modeling and results indicated that the interaction of copper and Aβ was through the hydrogen bond formation between adenine, guanine, and cytocine. This study illustrates the role of the copper and Aβ in modulating the DNA conformation and stability.