[Trivaline initiates formation of homo- and heteroquadruplex DNA structures]

Formation of heterologous (calf thymus double-stranded DNA) and homologous (linearized pBR322 plasmid double-stranded DNA) quadruplexes upon binding with the simple aliphatic tripeptide derivative (dansyl hydrazide trivaline) was examined by fluorimetry, flow linear and circular dichroism and electron microscopy. The morphology of the rod-like compact particles formed due to the association of double-stranded DNA segments proved to be the same for both DNAs, whereas the stability of the compact DNA structure upon tripeptide removal from the complex with DNA differed substantially for homologous versus non-homologous double-stranded DNA used. The increase of NaCl concentration in the solution up to 30 mM removes the peptide from both types of the complexes completely. At the same time at 20 mM NaCl calf thymus DNA quadruplexes readily dissociate, whereas the structures formed by plasmid DNA retain their morphology in the solution containing NaCl with concentrations up to 40 mM and are only partially disrupted at even higher NaCl concentration. These results provide the analogy between trivaline-DNA model complexes and RecA-DNA binding.