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. 1982 Aug;79(15):4560–4564. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.15.4560

Flipping of cloned d(pCpG)n.d(pCpG)n DNA sequences from right- to left-handed helical structure by salt, Co(III), or negative supercoiling.

L J Peck, A Nordheim, A Rich, J C Wang
PMCID: PMC346714  PMID: 6956879

Abstract

Negative supercoiling of plasmid DNAs containing 24--42 base pairs of alternating d(pCpG) inserts is shown to cause the flipping of the helical hand of the inserts from right to left under physiological conditions. For a negatively supercoiled DNA with a fixed linking number, this flipping reduces its superhelicity and, therefore, is accompanied by a shift of its electrophoretic mobility in agarose gel. Quantitation of the mobility shifts indicates that essentially the whole stretch of contiguous alternating d(pCpG) flips to the left-handed helical form when the negative superhelical density (specific linking difference) is greatest than or equal to 0.03.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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