Increasing Occurrences and Functional Roles for High Energy Purine-Pyrimidine Base-Pairs in Nucleic Acids

摘要

There are a growing number of studies reporting the observation of purine-pyrimidine base-pairs that are seldom observed in unmodified nucleic acids because they entail the loss of energetically favorable interactions or require energetically costly base ionization or tautomerization. These high energy purine-pyrimidine base-pairs include G•C⁺ and A•T Hoogsteen base-pairs, which entail ~180° rotation of the purine base in a Watson-Crick base-pair, protonation of cytosine N3, and constriction of the C1′–C1′ distance by ~2.5 Å. Other high energy pure-pyrimidine base-pairs include G•T, G•U, and A•C mispairs that adopt Watson-Crick like geometry through either base ionization or tautomerization. Although difficult to detect and characterize using biophysical methods, high energy purine-pyrimidine base-pairs appear to be more common than once thought. They further expand the structural and functional diversity of canonical and noncanonical nucleic acid base-pairs.