Figure 1.

Investigation of mechanical anisotropy of DNA G-quadruplex by molecular mosaicking strategies. A human telomeric G-quadruplex was tethered between two optically trapped particles via two duplex DNA handles that are conjugated to two residues in the G-quadruplex using click chemistry (see Figures 2A and S1 as an example). Top and bottom insets in bubbles depic G-quadruplexes without and with the telomestatin derivative (circularplate), respectively. Big and small 3D arrows inside the two bubbles respectively depict strong and weak mechanical stabilities of G-terads or loops along certain directions. Loop 3 is depicted as L3 while loops 1 and 2 are marked as L1 and L2, respectively. Chemical structures of telomestatin ligand L2H2–6OTD and G-tetrad are shown to the bottom.