A New Concentration Jump Strategy Reveals the Lifetime of i-Motif at Physiological pH without Force

Sagun Jonchhe, Prakash Shrestha, Katia Ascencio, Hanbin Mao

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Concentration jumps for kinetics measurement remain a challenge for single-molecule techniques, which have demonstrated superior signal-to-noise levels compared to ensemble average approaches. Currently, all concentration jumps use mixing strategies. Here, we report a simple and drastically different jump strategy by rapid transportation of molecules between two side-by-side laminar streams in 80 ms. This allowed us to measure the lifetime of bioactive DNA i-motif structures at physiological pH without force. We placed a human telomeric i-motif inside a DNA hairpin-based mechanical reporter. Since the folded or unfolded state of the hairpin correlates with that of the i-motif, by recording hairpin transitions, a half-life of ∼3 s was found for the DNA i-motif at neutral pH without force. Such a lifetime is sufficient for i-motif to interact with proteins to modulate cellular processes. We anticipate this concentration jump offers a generic platform to investigate single-molecule kinetics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3205-3210
Number of pages6
JournalAnalytical Chemistry
Volume90
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 6 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Analytical Chemistry

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