TY  - CONF
AU  - Longo, Marialucia
AU  - Sebastiani, Federico
AU  - Paciaroni, Alessandro
AU  - Orecchini, Andrea
AU  - Sacchetti, Francesco
AU  - Petrillo, Caterina
AU  - Muthmann, Matthias
AU  - Texeira, S. C.
AU  - de Francesco, A.
AU  - Comez, Lucia
TI  - Hydration-dependent dynamics of human telomeric oligonucleotides investigated by inelastic neutron scattering
M1  - FZJ-2018-04063
PY  - 2017
AB  - The functionality of biomolecules, such as DNA, is related not only to the structural but also to the dynamical properties. The activation of fast structural fluctuations on the pico- and nanosecond time windows enables slower conformational rearrangements and provides a minimum degree of flexibility required to carry out the biological activity. Recently, the number of studies on guanine-rich sequences at the end of telomeres is strongly increasing because of their potential therapeutic target for cancer. This kind of oligonucleotides can fold into a four-stranded structure called G-quadruplex and then inhibit the activity of telomerase, which is an enzyme responsible for the immortalization of the cancer cells. In this context, an inelastic neutron scattering study has been performed to investigate how the hydration degree and the temperature affect the thermal fluctuations of the intra-molecular sequence d[AG3(AG3T2)3], which has been extensively used as a model for human telomeres. A hydration-dependent dynamical activation in weakly hydrated samples of oligonucleotides was found showing a contribution from intra- and inter-nucleotide dynamics.The trends of both amplitudes and the characteristic timescales of the thermal fluctuations point to a higher conformational flexibility of the human telomeric sequence as compared to that of a long sequence of DNA.
T2  - Neutrons for Health
CY  - 27 Jun 2017 - 30 Jun 2017, Bad Reichenhall (Germany)
Y2  - 27 Jun 2017 - 30 Jun 2017
M2  - Bad Reichenhall, Germany
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)24
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/849968
ER  -