DNA sequence recognition by an imidazole-containing isopropyl-substituted thiazole polyamide (thiazotropsin B)

We have used DNA footprinting and fluorescence melting experiments to study the sequence specific binding of an imidazole-containing isopropyl-substituted thiazole polyamide (thiazotropsin B) to DNA. While the parent compound (thiazotropsin A) binds to the hexanucleotide sequence ACTAGT, changing one of the N-methylpyrrole groups to N-methylimidazole changes the preferred binding sequence to (A/T)CGCG(T/A). Experiments with DNA fragments that contain variants of this sequence suggest that the ligand can also bind, with lower affinity, to sequences which differ from this by 1 bp in any position.