Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 20, 2026

Sequence-specific and Selective Recognition of Double-stranded RNAs over Single-stranded RNAs by Chemically Modified Peptide Nucleic Acids
Published on: September 21, 2017
Photoswitchable, DNA-binding helical peptides assembled with two independently designed sequences for photoregulation
Kazuhisa Fujimoto1, Masaoki Kajino, Ikumi Sakaguchi
1Department of Applied Chemistry and Biochemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu Sangyo University, Matsukadai 2-3-1, Fukuoka 813-8503, Japan. kazuf@ip.kyusan-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
Diarylethene-bridged peptides were developed to photoregulate biomolecular interactions. The peptides are made up of diarylethene-bridged and DNA-binding regions at their N- and C termini, respectively. The two regions could be independently designed and combined as desired. The α-helicities of the peptides were photoregulated in on/off or off/on manners, and the manner depended on the positions of two ornithine (Orn) residues for cross-linking reaction at the diarylethene-bridged region. In the case of the on/off manner, when the diarylethene structure adopted the open form on the peptides, the peptides folded into stable α-helices. Upon UV irradiation, the diarylethene moiety isomerized to its closed form to destabilize the helical structures. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) analysis showed that the open isomer strongly associated with a target DNA, as compared with the closed one. When the closed-form peptide existing in the DNA complex was irradiated with a fluorescent lamp in the middle of the QCM monitoring, the frequency change (ΔF) was enhanced by the diarylethene photoisomerization.
Related Concept Videos
Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
Single-Strand DNA Binding Proteins
Cooperative Binding of Transcription Regulators
Cis-regulatory Sequences

