Specificity in the Reaction between Anti-Pyrimidine Nucleoside Antibodies and DNA

Abstract

The chemical coupling of nucleosides and nucleotides to proteins to form antigenic conjugates has been reported (Erlanger and Beiser, 1964). The antibodies elicited by such conjugates have been shown to be specific for the coupled moiety, and can react with denatured, but not native, DNA. One of the potential applications of such antibodies is their use as probes for the detection of localized single-stranded regions (in which the paired bases are not hydrogen-bonded) within native DNA molecules. Such regions might be of biological importance in replication or transcription, or might provide flexibility in a double-stranded helical molecule. Before such studies were undertaken, it was considered desirable to investigate the reaction of anti-nucleoside antibodies, specifically anti-cytidine and anti-thymidine, with native DNA molecules which had been modified chemically so as to contain exposed or nonhydrogen-bonded bases. These studies would serve as a model for future investigations.