G-quadruplexes and metal ions.

Nancy H Campbell, Stephen Neidle

The School of Pharmacy, University of London, London, WC1N 1AX, UK.

Metal ions in life sciences 2012

filter terms:

Metal ions stabilize quadruplex nucleic acids by coordinating the O6 guanine atoms from G-quartets. These quartets form the basic motif of quadruplex structures. This article systematically surveys the available crystallographic data on native quadruplexes, their ligand complexes and (in one instance) a protein complex. Three categories of quadruplex are examined, tetramolecular, bimolecular, and intramolecular: all are formed by telomeric nucleic acid sequences from human or ciliate organisms.