Title
Human-specific features of the G-quadruplex in the androgen receptor gene promoter: A comparative structural and dynamics study
Date Issued
01 September 2018
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
State University of Campinas
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
The androgen receptor (AR) promoter contains guanine-rich regions that are able to fold into polymorphic G-quadruplex (GQ) structures, and whose deletion decreases AR gene transcription. Our attention was focused on this region because of the frequent termination of sequencing reactions during promoter methylation studies. UV and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy of synthetic oligonucleotides encompassing these guanine-rich regions suggested a parallel quadruplex topology with three guanine quartets and three side loops in the three cases. Melting curves revealed a lower thermostability of the human GQ compared to the rat/mouse QG structures, which is attributed to the presence of a longer central loop in the former. One molecular model is proposed for the highly similar sequences in the rat/mouse. Due to the polymorphism resulting from possible arrangements of the guanine tracts, two models were derived for the human GQ. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations determined that both models for the human GQ had higher flexibility and lower stability than the rodent GQ models. These properties result from the presence of a longer central loop in the human GQ models, which contains 11 and 13 nucleotides, in comparison to the 2-nucleotide long loop in the rat/mouse GQ. Overall, the unveiled structural and dynamics features provide sufficient detail for the intelligent design of drugs targeting the human AR promoter.
Start page
95
End page
105
Volume
182
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Bioquímica, Biología molecular
Biología celular, Microbiología
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85046820492
PubMed ID
Source
Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
ISSN of the container
09600760
Sponsor(s)
This study was funded by grants from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) (Grant no 2009/16150-6) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). The funding agencies had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors are grateful to Centro Nacional de Processamento de Alto Desempenho em São Paulo (CENAPAD-SP), Laboratório de Genômica e Proteômica of Universidad Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), and the Molecular Reactivity and Drug Design Group of Universitat de las Illes Balears (UIB), for access to their computational facilities.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus