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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Single-molecule Manipulation of G-quadruplexes by Magnetic Tweezers
Published on: September 19, 2017
Direct NMR detection of the "invisible" alkali metal cations tightly bound to G-quadruplex structures
Alan Wong1, Ramsey Ida, Gang Wu
1Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, Ont., Canada K7L 3N6.
Abstract:
We report the first direct solution NMR detection of the alkali metal cations (23Na+, 39K+, and 87Rb+) residing inside G-quadruplex channel structures formed by guanosine 5'-monophosphate and a DNA oligomer, d(TG4T). In solution, these channel alkali metal cations are tightly bound to the G-quadruplex structure and have been considered to be "invisible" to NMR spectroscopy for many years. Our finding that it is possible to directly observe these alkali metal cations by NMR spectroscopy provides a new tool for studying cation binding affinity and dynamics in G-quadruplex DNA.
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