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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

A G-quadruplex DNA-affinity Approach for Purification of Enzymatically Active G4 Resolvase1
Published on: March 18, 2017
Ascididemin and meridine stabilise G-quadruplexes and inhibit telomerase in vitro
Lionel Guittat1, Anne De Cian, Frédéric Rosu
1Laboratoire de Biophysique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, INSERM UR 565, CNRS UMR 5153, 43 rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France.
Abstract:
Ascididemin and Meridine are two marine compounds with pyridoacridine skeletons known to exhibit interesting antitumour activities. These molecules have been reported to behave like DNA intercalators. In this study, dialysis competition assay and mass spectrometry experiments were used to determine the affinity of ascididemin and meridine for DNA structures among duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes and single-strands. Our data confirm that ascididemin and meridine interact with DNA but also recognize triplex and quadruplex structures. These molecules exhibit a significant preference for quadruplexes over duplexes or single-strands. Meridine is a stronger quadruplex ligand and therefore a stronger telomerase inhibitor than ascididemin (IC50=11 and >80 muM, respectively in a standard TRAP assay).
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