Conformations of dinucleoside monophosphates in relation to duplex DNA structures

✍ Scribed by Shashidhar N. Rao; V. Sasisekharan

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 774 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3525
• DOI: 10.1002/bip.360250104

✦ Synopsis

Mononucleotide conformations are important in understanding the structural aspects of nucleic acids and polynucleotides. In order to study the influence of stacking interactions between adjacent bases in a polynucleotide on the preferred conformations of mononucleotides, conformational energy calculations have been carried out on dinucleoside monophosphate fragments. Four base sequences-d(ApT), d(TpA), d(CpG), and d(GpC)-have been analyzed in the framework of helical structures. Flexibility of the furanose ring has been incorporated in the investigations. Energetically favored conformers of the four compounds correspond to a variety of left-and right-handed uniform helical structures, similar to those of the commonly observed polymorphous forms. Implications of these investigations on the further understanding of doublehelical polynucleotide conformations are briefly discussed.