DNA with tandem repeats of guanines folds into G-quadruplexes made of a stack of G-quartets. In vitro, G-quadruplex formation inhibits telomere extension, and POT1 binding to the singlestranded telomeric DNA enhances telomerase activity by disrupting the G-quadruplex structure, highlighting the potential importance of the G-quadruplex structure in regulating telomere length in vivo. We have used single-molecule spectroscopy to probe the dynamics of human telomeric DNA. Three conformations were observed in potassium solution, one unfolded and two folded, and each conformation could be further divided into two species, long-lived and short-lived, based on lifetimes of minutes vs. seconds. Vesicle encapsulation studies suggest that the total of six states detected here is intrinsic to the DNA. Folding was severely hindered by replacing a single guanine, showing only the shortlived species. The long-lived folded states are dominant in physiologically relevant conditions and probably correspond to the parallel and antiparallel G-quadruplexes seen in high-resolution structural studies. Although rare under these conditions, the shortlived species determine the overall dynamics because they bridge the different long-lived species. We propose that these previously unobserved transient states represent the early and late intermediates toward the formation of stable G-quadruplexes. The major compaction occurs between the early and late intermediates, and it is possible that local rearrangements are sufficient in locking the late intermediates into the stably folded forms. The extremely diverse conformations of the human telomeric DNA may have mechanistic implications for the proteins and drugs that recognize G-rich sequences.FRET ͉ G-quadruplex ͉ single molecule ͉ telomere ͉ vesicle encapsulation E ukaryotic chromosomes have a novel nucleoprotein structure at both ends called a telomere. Telomeres are indispensable for protection against genome degradation and have implications in cellular aging and cancer (1-3). In many organisms, a telomeric DNA is composed of tandem repeats of short DNA sequences. In vitro, this guanine-rich region forms G-quadruplex (4), which blocks the binding of telomerase (5). The potential importance of Gquadruplex structure was further implied by the recent demonstration in vitro that the human POT1, which binds to the singlestranded form of human telomeric DNA (6), facilitates the telomerase activity by disrupting G-quadruplex (7). Human disease helicases, BLM and WRN, also were shown to disrupt Gquadruplexes in vitro (8,9). Because extension of the telomere is critical for generation and growth of cancer cells, the human telomeric G-quadruplex is considered a target for anticancer agents. Structure-based design of chemotherapeutic drugs would require an understanding of a range of conformations that can be adopted by the G-rich sequences, and indeed it was shown to be possible to design molecules that are specific to different types of G-quadruplex structures (10). Although there is no demonstr...

We have found that the efficiency of fluorescence resonance energy transfer between Cy3 and Cy5 terminally attached to the 5 ends of a DNA duplex is significantly affected by the relative orientation of the two fluorophores. The cyanine fluorophores are predominantly stacked on the ends of the helix in the manner of an additional base pair, and thus their relative orientation depends on the length of the helix. Observed fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency depends on the length of the helix, as well as its helical periodicity. By changing the helical geometry from B form double-stranded DNA to A form hybrid RNA/DNA, a marked phase shift occurs in the modulation of FRET efficiency with helix length. Both curves are well explained by the standard geometry of B and A form helices. The observed modulation for both polymers is less than that calculated for a fully rigid attachment of the fluorophores. However, a model involving lateral mobility of the fluorophores on the ends of the helix explains the observed experimental data. This has been further modified to take account of a minor fraction of unstacked fluorophore observed by fluorescent lifetime measurements. Our data unequivocally establish that Fö rster transfer obeys the orientation dependence as expected for a dipole-dipole interaction.cyanine fluorophores ͉ FRET ͉ kappa squared ͉ single-molecule FRET F luorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) has become widely used to report on distances over the macromolecular scale in biology (1), reviewed in refs. 2-4. The method is highly sensitive, and consequently has been widely exploited in singlemolecule experiments in biological systems. Energy transfer results from dipolar coupling between the transition moments of two fluorophores, and the efficiency of the process (E FRET ) depends on the separation between the donor and acceptor fluorophores, raised to the sixth power. Although such data are frequently interpreted on the assumption of a simple relationship between E FRET and distance, E FRET should also depend on the relative orientation of the transition dipole vectors.The orientation dependence is likely to be most significant where the fluorophores are constrained (5-9). This has been demonstrated experimentally by using a fluorophore that was terminally affixed to duplex DNA by two points of covalent attachment (10), thereby seriously constraining its motion. This situation is not typical of most FRET studies involving nucleic acids. Fluorophores are normally tethered by a single point of attachment, and in theory would be significantly less constrained. But if the fluorophores adopt a rigid manner of attachment to the helix, an orientational dependence could be observed.Cy3 and Cy5 are a commonly used fluorophore pair, especially in single-molecule experiments. Our earlier NMR studies have shown that when these are attached to the 5Ј termini of duplex DNA via a 3-carbon linker to the 5Ј-phosphate they are predominantly stacked onto the ends of the helix in the manner of an additio...

We introduce a non-intrusive method exploiting post-division single-cell variability to validate protein localization. The results show that Clp proteases, widely reported to form biologically relevant foci, are in fact uniformly distributed inside Escherichia coli cells, and that many commonly used fluorescent proteins (FPs) cause severe mislocalization when fused to homo-oligomers. Re-tagging five other reportedly foci-forming proteins with the most monomeric FP tested suggests the foci were caused by the FPs.