Genetic instability triggered by G-quadruplex interacting Phen-DC compounds in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

ABSTRACT: G-quadruplexes are nucleic acid secondary structures for which many biological roles have been proposed but whose existence in vivo has remained elusive. To assess their formation, highly specific G-quadruplex ligands are needed. Here, we tested Phen-DC(3) and Phen-DC(6), two recently released ligands of the bisquinolinium class. In vitro, both compounds exhibit high affinity for the G4 formed by the human minisatellite CEB1 and inhibit efficiently their unwinding by the yeast Pif1 helicase. In vivo, both compounds rapidly induced recombination-dependent rearrangements of CEB1 inserted in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome, but did not affect the stability of other tandem repeats lacking G-quadruplex forming sequences. The rearrangements yielded simple-deletion, double-deletion or complex

SUBMITTER: Piazza A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2910037 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature