Self-Assembly of G-Rich Oligonucleotides Incorporating a 3'-3' Inversion of Polarity Site: A New Route Towards G-Wire DNA Nanostructures.

Abstract

Obtaining DNA nanostructures with potential applications in drug discovery, diagnostics, and electronics in a simple and affordable way represents one of the hottest topics in nanotechnological and medical sciences. Herein, we report a novel strategy to obtain structurally homogeneous DNA G‐wire nanostructures of known length, starting from the short unmodified G‐rich oligonucleotide d(5′‐CGGT‐3′–3′‐GGC‐5′) (1) incorporating a 3’–3′ inversion of polarity site. The reported approach allowed us to obtain long G‐wire assemblies through 5′–5′ π–π stacking interactions in between the tetramolecular G‐quadruplex building blocks that form when 1 is annealed in the presence of potassium ions. Our results expand the repertoire of synthetic methodologies to obtain new tailored DNA G‐wire nanostructures.