A single-molecule magnetic tweezers platform to manipulate G-quadruplexes is reported, which allows for the study of G4 stability and regulation by various proteins.
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Method Article
Single-molecule Manipulation of G-quadruplexes by Magnetic Tweezers
* These authors contributed equally
In This Article
Summary
Abstract
Non-canonical nucleic acid secondary structure G-quadruplexes (G4) are involved in diverse cellular processes, such as DNA replication, transcription, RNA processing, and telomere elongation. During these processes, various proteins bind and resolve G4 structures to perform their function. As the function of G4 often depends on the stability of its folded structure, it is important to investigate how G4 binding proteins regulate the stability of G4. This work presents a method to manipulate single G4 molecules using magnetic tweezers, which enables studies of the regulation of G4 binding proteins on a single G4 molecule in real time. In general, this method is suitable for a wide scope of applications in studies for proteins/ligands interactions and regulations on various DNA or RNA secondary structures.
Introduction
Four-stranded DNA or RNA G4 structures play critical roles in many important biological processes1. Many proteins are involved in G4 binding and regulation, including telomere binding proteins (telomerase, POT1, RPA, TEBPs, TRF2)1,2, transcription factors (nucleolin, PARP1)3, RNA processing proteins (hnRNP A1, hnRNP A2)4, helicases (BLM, FANCJ, RHAU, WRN, Dna2, Pif1)5, and DNA replication related proteins (Rif1, REV1, PrimPolymerase)6. Protein binding can stabilize or destabilize G4 structure....
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Protocol
1. Preparation of G4 DNA for Single-molecule Stretching
- Prepare 5'-thiol labeled and 5'-biotin labeled dsDNA handles by PCR using DDNA polymerase on a lambda phage DNA template using 5'-thiol and 5'-biotin primers14 (Figure 1). Both dsDNA handles have high GC content (> 60%) to prevent DNA melting when DNA is held at high forces or during DNA overstretching transition15.
- Purify PCR products using a commercial purification kit and digest with BstXI restriction enzyme according to the manufacturer's protocol.
- Ligate G4 forming ssDNA, and flank ssDNA and dsDNA ha....
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Results
The experiment setup for stretching a single G4 molecule is shown in Figure 4. A single-stranded G4 forming sequence spanned between two dsDNA handles was tethered between a coverslip and a paramagnetic bead. To find a single dsDNA tethered bead, an overstretching assay was performed by increasing the force at constant loading rates. Three types of measurements were often used for studying the folding and unfolding of biomolecules: (i) constant force measurem.......
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Discussion
As described above, a platform for studying the mechanical stability of G4 DNA and the interactions of protein to G4 using single-molecule magnetic tweezers is reported. Accompanying the platform, highly efficient protocols of finding G4 DNA tether, and measurement of the folding-unfolding dynamics and stability of the G4 structure with nanometers special resolution are developed. The focal plane locking enables highly stable anti-drift control, which is important for detecting a small structure transition such as G4 (st.......
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Disclosures
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Meng Pan for proofreading the manuscript. This work is supported by Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 (MOE2012-T3-1-001) to J.Y.; the National Research Foundation through the Mechanobiology Institute Singapore to J.Y.; the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister's Office, Singapore, under its NRF Investigatorship Programme (NRF Investigatorship Award No. NRF-NRFI2016-03 to J.Y.; the Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities (2017KFYXJJ153) to H. Y.
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Materials
| Name | Company | Catalog Number | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| DNA PCR primers | IDT | DNA preparations | |
| DNA PCR chemicals | NEB | DNA preparations | |
| restriction enzyme BstXI | NEB | R0113S | DNA preparations |
| coverslips (#1.5, 22*32 mm, and 20*20 mm) | BMH.BIOMEDIA | 72204 | flow channel preparation |
| Decon90 | Decon Laboratories Limited | flow channel preparation | |
| APTES | Sigma | 440140-500ML | flow channel preparation |
| Sulfo-SMCC | ThermoFisher Scientific | 22322 | flow channel preparation |
| M-280, paramganetic beads,streptavidin | ThermoFisher Scientific | 11205D | flow channel preparation |
| Polybead Amino Microspheres 3.00 μm | Polysciences, Inc | 17145-5 | flow channel preparation |
| 2-Mercaptoethanol | Sigma | M6250-250ML | flow channel preparation |
| Olympus Microscopes IX71 | Olympus | IX71 | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| Piezo-Z Stages P-721 | Physik Instrumente | P-721 | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| Olympus Objective lense MPLAPON-Oil 100X | Olympus | MPLAPON-Oil 100X | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| CCD/CMOS camera | AVT | Pike F-032B | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| Translation linear stage | Physik Instrumente | MoCo DC | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| LED | Thorlabs | MCWHL | Magnetic tweezers setup |
| Cubic Magnets | Supermagnete | Magnetic tweezers setup | |
| Labview | National Instruments | Magnetic tweezers setup | |
| OriginPro/Matlab | OriginLab/MathWorks | Data analysis |
References
- Rhodes, D., Lipps, H. J. G-quadruplexes and their regulatory roles in biology. Nucleic Acids Res. 43 (18), 8627-8637 (2015).
- Brazda, V., Haronikova, L., Liao, J. C., Fojta, M. DNA and RNA quadruplex-binding proteins. Int J Mol Sci. 15 (10), 17493-17517 (2014).
- Gonzalez, V., Hurley....
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