MercuryII-mediated formation of thymine-HgII-thymine base pairs in DNA duplexes.
The very specific binding of the HgII ion unexpectedly and significantly stabilizes naturally occurring thymine-thymine base mispairing in DNA duplexes. Following this finding, we prepared DNA duplexes containing metal-mediated base pairs at the desired sites, as well as novel double helical architectures consisting only of thymine-HgII-thymine pairs.
Base Pairing↗