Xiao Xie (2015)

Development of fluorescent probes for the detection of quadruplex DNA

Abstract

Single-Stranded nucleic acids containing guanine repeats can form non-Canonical secondary structures called G-Quadruplexes. These structures are composed of several guanine quartets, maintained by hydrogen bonds and metal cations (K+ or Na+) coordinated between G-Quartets. In spite of being well-Studied in vitro, the evidence for the presence of quadruplex DNA structures in vivo remains mainly indirect. The objective of this work was research of fluorescent probes that can signal the presence of quadruplex DNA and detect its structure (topology).Two series of fluorescent probes were considered and prepared: styryls dyes (mostly distyryls) and PDC-Coumarin derivatives. The design of these two series is based on the molecular scaffold of bisquinolinium pyridodicarboxamide (PDC-360A), a selective ligand with good affinity for quadruplex DNA structures but which is not fluorescent. Inspired by this molecule and the styryl motif, which is known for its spectroscopic properties, we considered a library of distyryles dyes. A second series, the PDC-Coumarin derivatives, was developed to introduce the fluorescence property of coumarin in the PDC by a covalent link. The properties of dyes of these two libraries (65 compounds) were studied in the presence of a number of DNA structures (quadruplex and duplex) by a fluorescent screening using microplate and titration methods. Our results show that some of synthesized dyes display high fluorescence response (i.e. fluorescence increase factor from 200 to 600) for different quadruplex DNA and RNA structures, while having a very low fluorimetric response for duplex DNA. This allows a selective visualization of quadruplex DNA in solution or in electrophoresis gel. These results represent the first steps towards the use of these probes in a biological context, for example in fluorescence imaging. (Defended on January 28, 2015)