Optical Tweezers as a Probe for Oligodeoxyribonucleotide Structuration

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate if the optical tweezers (OT) are suitable as a diagnostic tool for monitoring the oligodeoxyribonucleotide (ODN) structural behavior in solution. Preliminary experiments, performed on the quadruplex formed by the ODN sequence TGGGGT, showed that the OT can be used as a probe for ODN structuration by monitoring the medium viscosity changes associated with ODN folding-unfolding processes.

Keywords:

• Optical tweezers
• DNA quadruplexes
• viscosity changes
• structural studies

This work is supported by Italian MURST (PRIN 2005). The authors are grateful to Centro di Servizi Interdipartimentale di Analisi Strumentale (CSIAS), for supplying the NMR facilities.