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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

A Study of the Complexation of Mercury(II) with Dicysteinyl Tetrapeptides by Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry
Published on: January 8, 2016
MercuryII-mediated formation of thymine-HgII-thymine base pairs in DNA duplexes
Yoko Miyake1, Humika Togashi, Mitsuru Tashiro
1Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Minami-ohsawa 1-1, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397 Japan.
Abstract:
The very specific binding of the HgII ion unexpectedly and significantly stabilizes naturally occurring thymine-thymine base mispairing in DNA duplexes. Following this finding, we prepared DNA duplexes containing metal-mediated base pairs at the desired sites, as well as novel double helical architectures consisting only of thymine-HgII-thymine pairs.
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