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Electronic Excitations in Guanine Quadruplexes

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Photoinduced Phenomena in Nucleic Acids II

Part of the book series: Topics in Current Chemistry ((TOPCURRCHEM,volume 356))

Abstract

Guanine rich DNA strands, such as those encountered at the extremities of human chromosomes, have the ability to form four-stranded structures (G-quadruplexes) whose building blocks are guanine tetrads. G-quadruplex structures are intensively studied in respect of their biological role, as targets for anticancer therapy and, more recently, of their potential applications in the field of molecular electronics. Here we focus on their electronic excited states which are compared to those of non-interacting mono-nucleotides and those of single and double stranded structures. Particular emphasis is given to excited state relaxation processes studied by time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy from femtosecond to nanosecond time scales. They include ultrafast energy transfer and trapping of ππ* excitations by charge transfer states. The effect of various structural parameters, such as the nature of the metal cations located in the central cavity of G-quadruplexes, the number of tetrads or the conformation of the constitutive single strands, are examined.

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Acknowledgment

The French National Agency for Research (ANR-12-BS08-0001-01) is acknowledged for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, IRAMIS, LIDYL, Laboratoire Francis Perrin, URA 2453, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France

    Pascale Changenet-Barret, Ying Hua & Dimitra Markovitsi

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  1. Pascale Changenet-Barret
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  2. Ying Hua
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  3. Dimitra Markovitsi
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Correspondence to Dimitra Markovitsi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany

    Mario Barbatti

  2. Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Antonio Carlos Borin

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

    Susanne Ullrich

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Changenet-Barret, P., Hua, Y., Markovitsi, D. (2014). Electronic Excitations in Guanine Quadruplexes. In: Barbatti, M., Borin, A., Ullrich, S. (eds) Photoinduced Phenomena in Nucleic Acids II. Topics in Current Chemistry, vol 356. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/128_2013_511

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