Design of artificial nucleic acid chaperones for DNA engineering

We have shown that the comb-type copolymer consisting of a polycation backbone and hydrophilic side chains stabilizes DNA hybrids. Furthermore, the copolymers showed the activity to accelerate DNA strand exchange reactions between double helical DNA and its complementary DNA. The copolymer was considered to stimulate breakage and reassociation of base pairing and act as an artificial nucleic acid chaperone. The polymer's chaperoning activity was elaborated for rapid and precise judging of a subtle difference in DNA sequences. One base alternation out of 20mer DNA was quickly detected by the strand exchange assay employing the copolymer. From these, we conclude that the copolymer would be a useful material in DNA engineering that employs rapid and precise DNA folding.