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Opening of the extraordinarily stable mini-hairpin d(GCGAAGC)
B Jollès1, M Réfrégiers, A Laigle
1LPBC (CNRS URA 2056), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, Case 138, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France. jolles@lpbc.jussieu.fr
Abstract:
For the purposes of the antisense strategy oligodeoxyribonucleotides can be protected against serum and cell nuclease digestion by tagging at their 3'-end with a sequence naturally forming a very stable hairpin, d(GCGAAGC). This nuclease-resistant hairpin is also known for its high thermostability. We demonstrate in this study that attachment of d(GCGAAGC) at the 3'-end of an oligodeoxyribonucleotide does not hinder hybridization of the 5'-part of this oligonucleotide to a complementary DNA strand. Moreover, the hairpin is in equilibrium between a folded and an open structure, with an energy minimum in favor of pairing if it is possible, even with mismatches.
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