期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1987
卷号:84
期号:8
页码:2223-2227
DOI:10.1073/pnas.84.8.2223
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Supercoiled plasmid DNA harboring an insert of (dG-dC)16, a sequence known to form Z-DNA upon negative supercoiling, was reacted with chloroacetaldehyde. Chloroacetaldehyde, like bromoacetaldehyde, was found to be a specific probe for detecting unpaired DNA bases in supercoiled plasmid DNA. Under torsional stress (at bacterial superhelical density), chloroacetaldehyde reacted at multiple discrete regions within the neighboring sequences of the (dG-dC)16 insert. When the plasmid population was considered as a whole, the distribution of the chemically reactive bases exhibited a pattern of inversion symmetry with the center of inversion in the middle of the (dG-dC)16 insert. However, when a single supercoiled plasmid molecule was considered, chloroacetaldehyde reacted with only one of the neighboring sequences, either 5' or 3' of the (dG-dC)16 insert, but not with both. The possibility that the supercoiled plasmid DNA is in equilibrium with these two structural forms is discussed.