Backbone-free duplex-stacked monomer nucleic acids exhibiting Watson–Crick selectivity

We demonstrate that nucleic acid (NA) mononucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs and rNTPs), at sufficiently high concentration and low temperature in aqueous solution, can exhibit a phase transition in which chromonic columnar liquid crystal ordering spontaneously appears. Remarkably, this polymer-free st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2018-08, Vol.115 (33), p.E7658-E7664
Main Authors: Smith, Gregory P., Fraccia, Tommaso P., Todisco, Marco, Zanchetta, Giuliano, Zhu, Chenhui, Hayden, Emily, Bellini, Tommaso, Clark, Noel A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adenosine
Adenosine triphosphate
Aqueous solutions
Base pairs
Base stacking
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Binary mixtures
Biological Sciences
Complementarity
Cytosine
double helix
Guanine
liquid crystal
Liquid crystal polymers
Liquid crystals
Low temperature
Low temperature physics
Monomers
nucleic acid
Nucleic acids
nucleoside triphosphate
Phase transitions
Physical Sciences
PNAS Plus
prebiotic evolution
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Selectivity
Self-assembly
Structural members
Thymine
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Summary:We demonstrate that nucleic acid (NA) mononucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs and rNTPs), at sufficiently high concentration and low temperature in aqueous solution, can exhibit a phase transition in which chromonic columnar liquid crystal ordering spontaneously appears. Remarkably, this polymer-free state exhibits, in a self-assembly of NA monomers, the key structural elements of biological nucleic acids, including: long-ranged duplex stacking of base pairs, complementarity-dependent partitioning of molecules, and Watson–Crick selectivity, such that, among all solutions of adenosine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine NTPs and their binary mixtures, duplex columnar ordering is most stable in the A-T and C-G combinations.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1721369115