Thermodynamic basis for engineering high-affinity, high-specificity binding-induced DNA clamp nanoswitches.

ABSTRACT: Naturally occurring chemoreceptors almost invariably employ structure-switching mechanisms, an observation that has inspired the use of biomolecular switches in a wide range of artificial technologies in the areas of diagnostics, imaging, and synthetic biology. In one mechanism for generating such behavior, clamp-based switching, binding occurs via the clamplike embrace of two recognition elements onto a single target molecule. In addition to coupling recognition with a large conformational change, this mechanism offers a second advantage: it improves both affinity and specificity simultaneously. To explore the physics of such switches we have dissected here the thermodynamics of a clamp-switch that recognizes a target DNA sequence through both Watson-Crick base pairing and triplex-forming

SUBMITTER: Idili A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4281346 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature