Abstract
Zinc, a component of a large number of enzymes and an abundant and essential trace metal, alters the structure of AGCT sites in negatively supercoiled DNA. Related sequences show little or no effect. Cobalt and cadmium show reactivities similar to zinc. The conformational change in DNA was fine mapped with haloacetaldehydes using chemical cleavage or primer extension methods. Since a many fold excess of zinc to AGCT sites is required to saturate the reaction, we propose that the zinc-AGCT complex is preferentially accessible to the haloacetaldehyde probes due to a conformational deformation. Hence, zinc is the smallest ligand (by ~500- fold) that causes a perturbation of a specific DNA sequence.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 9528-9532 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Journal of Biological Chemistry |
Volume | 269 |
Issue number | 13 |
Publication status | Published - 1994 Apr 1 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Cell Biology