6533b859fe1ef96bd12b77aa

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Multitasking Water-Soluble Synthetic G-Quartets: From Preferential RNA-Quadruplex Interaction to Biocatalytic Activity

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Natural G-quartets, a cyclic and coplanar array of four guanine res- idues held together through a Watson- Crick/Hoogsteen hydrogen-bond net- work, have received recently much at- tention due to their involvement in G- quadruplex DNA, an alternative higher-order DNA structure strongly suspected to play important roles in key cellular events. Besides this, syn- thetic G-quartets (SQ), which artificial- ly mimic native G-quartets, have also been widely studied for their involve- ment in nanotechnological applications (i.e., nanowires, artificial ion channels, etc.). In contrast, intramolecular syn- thetic G-quartets (iSQ), also named template-assembled synthetic G-quar- tets (TASQ), have been more sparingly investigated, despite a technological potential just as interesting. Herein, we report on a particular iSQ named PNA DOTASQ, which demonstrates very interesting properties in terms of DNA and RNA interaction (notably its selec- tive recognition of quadruplexes ac- cording to a bioinspired process) and catalytic activities, through its ability to perform peroxidase-like hemin-mediat- ed oxidations either in an autonomous fashion (i.e., as pre-catalyst for TASQ- zyme reactions) or in conjunction with quadruplex DNA (i.e., as enhancing agents for DNAzyme processes). These results provide a solid scientific basis for TASQ to be used as multitasking tools for bionanotechnological applica- tions.