Single strand targeted triplex formation: strand displacement of duplex DNA by foldback triplex-forming oligonucleotides.

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Linear oligonucleotides that bind to single-stranded nucleic acid targets by formation of both Watson-Crick (duplex) and Hoogsteen (triplex) hydrogen bonds simultaneously (foldback triplex-forming oligonucleotides; FTFOs) were studied for their ability to disrupt duplex DNA. Recently, we reported that FTFOs interfere with quadruplex forming ability of guanine rich RNA and DNA sequences and indicated that they might also disrupt duplex structures binding to the purine target strand by foldback triplex formation (Kandimalla and Agrawal, Nucleic Acids Res. (1995) 23, 1068-1074). We now obtained evidence for strand displacement of duplex DNA by FTFOs using nuclease assays and thermal melting studies. UV melting studies revealed that complementary strands of 16 to 31 bases long were completely displaced. Results of DNase I assays showed that the FTFOs bound to purine site by strand displacement probably by preassociating with the duplex DNA in the major groove via Hoogsteen hydrogen bonding and subsequently displacing the complementary strand. Experiments with S1 nuclease, an enzyme specific for single-stranded nucleic acids, confirmed the strand displacement ability of the FTFOs.