Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction studies of a D-lysine-based chiral PNA-DNA duplex.

A 10-mer duplex formed between a PNA containing a 'chiral box' of three adjacent D-Lys-based monomers and its complementary DNA strand has been crystallized for the first time. Crystals have been obtained using PEG 8000 as precipitant and cacodylate at pH 6.3 as buffer. The crystals belong to the space group P3(1) or to its enantiomorph P3(2), with unit-cell parameters a = b = 35.00, c = 35.91 A. A complete data set has been collected at the synchrotron source Elettra in Trieste to 1.85 A resolution, using a single frozen crystal.