Eu³⁺-induced DNA Condensation and Chirality Transfer

Tao Wu, Petr Bouř, Valery Andrushchenko

Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences,
Flemingovo nam. 2, Prague, 16610, Czech Republic
andrushchenko@uochb.cas.cz

Eu³⁺-induced DNA condensation has been recently studied with several chiral optical spectroscopic techniques and microscopy imaging. Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) of Eu³⁺ ions bound to DNA was registered through Raman optical activity (ROA) experiment (Figure 1). CPL/ROA activity was observed in both short-chain and long-chain DNA. Binding of Eu³⁺ to the long-chain DNA induced DNA condensation, as was shown by electronic circular dichroism (ECD). The DNA condensation was further visualized by microscopic images employing emitted circularly polarized light (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Raman and ROA spectra of Eu³⁺-DNA complex (left) and circularly polarized microscopic image of DNA condensed by Eu³⁺ ions (right).

Acknowledgements

Support from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (grants 16-08764Y (TW), 15-09072S (PB) and 16-04902S (VA)) is gratefully acknowledged.