Protonated structures of naturally occurring deoxyribonucleic acids and their interaction with berberine Original Research Article

Protonation-induced conformational changes in natural DNAs of diverse base composition under the influence of low pH, low temperature, and low ionic strength have been studied using various spectroscopic techniques. At pH 3.40, 10 mM [Na+], and at 5 °C, all natural DNAs irrespective of base composition adopted an unusual and stable conformation remarkably different from the canonical B-form conformation. This protonated conformation has been characterized to have unique absorption and circular dichroic spectral characteristics and exhibited cooperative thermal melting profiles with decreased thermal melting temperatures compared to their respective B-form counterparts. The nature of this protonated structure was further investigated by monitoring the interaction of the plant alkaloid, berberine that was previously shown from our laboratory to differentially bind to B-form and HL-form of poly[d(G–C)] [Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2003, 11, 4861]. Binding of berberine to protonated conformation of natural DNAs resulted in intrinsic circular dichroic changes as well as generation of induced circular dichroic bands for the bound berberine molecule with opposite signs and magnitude compared with B-form structures. Nevertheless, the binding of the alkaloid to both the B and protonated forms was non-linear and non-cooperative as revealed from Scatchard plots derived from spectrophotometric titration data. Steady state fluorescence studies on the other hand showed remarkable increase of the rather weak intrinsic fluorescence of berberine on binding to the protonated structure compared to the B-form structure. Taken together, these results suggest that berberine can detect the formation of significant population of HL-form structures under the influence of protonation irrespective of heterogeneous base compositions in natural DNAs.