Study of the structural stability of the mini-hairpin d(GCGAAGC) by hydrogen-deuterium exchange kinetics

order to protect them against enzymatic attack of serum in the antisense st rategy, oligodeoxyribonucleotides can be protected on their 3'-side by the sequence d(GCGAAGC), which spontaneously forms a hairpin known for its extr aordinary stability with regard to thermal denaturation or nuclease degrada tion. It is stabilized through two G-C base pairs and a non-Watson-Crick G- A pair. Its proton exchange halftime as determined by resonance Raman spect roscopy is 6 days, which suggests a drastically more stable structure than that of the already very rigid canonical Z-DNA form. Copyright (C) 2000 Joh n Wiley & Sons, Ltd.