Frontiers in Nucleic Acids
ACS Symposium Series, Vol. 1082

This book evolved from a symposium held at the Joint Southeast Southwest Regional meeting of the American Chemical Society in December, 2010 in New Orleans, LA. The symposium, hosted by the Division of Biological Chemistry, focused on the latest cutting edge research in nucleic acids. Although "Frontiers in Nucleic Acids" has always been a symposium at SERMACS meeting and at the five year joint meetings of the southwest and southeast regions, this represents the first time that the proceedings of the symposium have been published. The first four chapters of the book focus on the conformational properties of DNA quadruplexes: Prof. David uses SPR to monitor the inhibition of helicase activity on a DNA quadruplex; a facile fluorescence based assay for quadruplex DNA cleavage is presented in the next chapter by Prof. Kerwin; the structure, stability and ligand binding properties of DNA quadruplexes found in promoter regions of some oncogenes is discussed by Prof. Lewis; and the fourth chapter examines the influence of sequence context on the structure of DNA quadruplexes as presented by Prof. Sheardy. The next chapter, by Prof. Bishop, is an interesting computational tour de force examining nucleosomal DNA. Prof. Marky discusses the thermodynamics of unfolding DNA hairpins. Chapter 7, by Prof. Wartell, also considers thermodynamics but now for the interactions of Hfq with RNA. The final three chapters deal with ligand-DNA interactions: Prof. Williams examines the interactions of proteins with the grooves of DNA; the irreversible binding of aflatoxin to DNA is examined by Prof. Stone; and the final chapter focuses on the interactions of restriction nucleases with various DNAs as presented by Prof. Winkle.

1. Inhibition of G-Quadruplex Helicase Activity As Determined by Surface Plasmon Resonance. Matthew Decker, Bhupendra Mishra, Dalip Kumar, and Wendi M. David. 2. A Fluorescence-Based G-Quadruplex DNA Cleavage Assay. Michelle Schoonover and Sean M. Kerwin. 3. Biophysical Studies of the Structure, Stability, and Ligand Binding Properties of G-Quadruplex DNA: Thoughts and Comparisons of the K-ras, c-MYC, and Bcl-2 Oncogene Promoter Sequence Quadruplexes. Jamie M. Dettler and Edwin A. Lewis. 4. A CD Spectroscopic Investigation of Intermolecular and Intramolecular DNA Quadruplexes. Brenna A. Tucker, Sahmla Gabriel, and Richard D. Sheardy. 5. Nucleosomal DNA: Kinked, Not Kinked, or Self-Healing Material? Rajib Mukherjee and Thomas C. Bishop. 6. The Size of Internal Loops Influences the Unfolding Thermodynamics of DNA Hairpins. Iztok Prislan, Hui-Ting Lee, Cynthia Lee, and Luis A. Marky. 7. A Thermodynamic Perspective of sRNA-mRNA Interactions and the Role of Hfq. Kanav Jain, Taylor B. Updegrove, and Roger M. Wartell. 8. Protein: Feeling the Groove of DNA. Derrick Watkins, Lydia-Ann Harris, Gerald B. Koudelka, and Loren Dean Williams. 9. Chemistry and Biology of Aflatoxin-DNA Adducts. Michael P. Stone, Surajit Banerjee, Kyle L. Brown, and Martin Egli. 10. Examining Flanking Sequence Specificity and Topological Specificity in the Binding of Various Molecular Types to DNAs Using Restriction Endonuclease Activity Assays. S. A. Winkle, E. Duran, J. Pulido, G. Santil, M. Talavera, C. Winkle, R. D. Sheardy, and V. Ramsauer. Editors' Biographies. Indexes. Author Index. Subject Index.

Richard D. Sheardy, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Texas Woman's University Stephen A. Winkle, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida International University