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Published on: October 25, 2017
Structural heterogeneity in DNA: temperature dependence of 2-aminopurine fluorescence in dinucleotides
Oscar J G Somsen1, Linda B Keukens, M Niels de Keijzer
1Wageningen University, Laboratory of Biophysics, P.O. Box 8128, 6700 ET Wageningen, The Netherlands. oscar.somsen@wur.nl
Abstract:
The fluorescent base analogue 2-aminopurine is a sensitive probe for local dynamics of DNA. Its fluorescence is quenched by interaction with the neighboring bases, but the underlying mechanisms are still under investigation. We studied 2-aminopurine fluorescence in dinucleotides with each of the natural bases. Consistently, two of the four fluorescence-decay components depend strongly on temperature. Our results indicate that these components are due to the excited-state dynamics of a single conformational state. We propose a variation of the gating model in which transient unstacking occurs in the excited state.
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