Issue 7, 2022

Single-molecule conductance of double-stranded RNA oligonucleotides

Abstract

RNA oligonucleotides are crucial for a range of biological functions and in many biotechnological applications. Herein, we measured, for the first time, the conductance of individual double-stranded (ds)RNA molecules and compared it with the conductance of single DNA : RNA hybrids. The average conductance values are similar for both biomolecules, but the distribution of conductance values shows an order of magnitude higher variability for dsRNA, indicating higher molecular flexibility of dsRNA. Microsecond Molecular Dynamics simulations explain this difference and provide structural insights into the higher stability of DNA : RNA duplex with atomic level of detail. The rotations of 2′-OH groups of the ribose rings and the bases in RNA strands destabilize the duplex structure by weakening base stacking interactions, affecting charge transport, and making single-molecule conductance of dsRNA more variable (dynamic disorder). The results demonstrate that a powerful combination of state-of-the-art biomolecular electronics techniques and computational approaches can provide valuable insights into biomolecules’ biophysics with unprecedented spatial resolution.

Graphical abstract: Single-molecule conductance of double-stranded RNA oligonucleotides

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
19 okt 2021
Accepted
22 dec 2021
First published
02 feb 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2022,14, 2572-2577

Single-molecule conductance of double-stranded RNA oligonucleotides

S. Chandra, K. G. Gunasinghe Pattiya Arachchillage, E. Kliuchnikov, F. Maksudov, S. Ayoub, V. Barsegov and J. M. Artés Vivancos, Nanoscale, 2022, 14, 2572 DOI: 10.1039/D1NR06925J

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