Nucleic acid structure – Xray and NMR
We use NMR and X-ray crystallography to study the structural properties of
nucleic acids including base pair mismatches in DNA and their implications
for DNA repair. This produced a series of publications including the
structures of DNA duplexes containing G.T mismatches
(View paper)
and A.C mismatches
(View paper). Our studies highlighted the fact that mispaired bases form distinct
structures and cause minimal distortion to the overall conformation of
the DNA duplex. Therefore enzymatic recognition of modified base pairs
in living systems must depend upon subtle differences at the molecular
level. We also recently solved the structures of DNA duplexes containing
the epigenetic base 5-formyl C to determine its effects on conformation
at high resolution
(View Paper)