Small molecule-induced trinucleotide repeat contractions during in vitro DNA synthesis†
Abstract
We demonstrated that a synthetic ligand NA, which selectively binds to a 5′-CAG-3′/5′-CAG-3′ triad, induced repeat contractions during DNA polymerase-mediated primer extension through the CAG repeat template. A thorough capillary electrophoresis and sequencing analysis revealed that the d(CAG)20 template gave shortened nascent strands mainly containing 3–6 CTG units in the presence of NA.