Structural conversion of intramolecular and intermolecular G-quadruplexes of bcl2mid: the effect of potassium concentration and ion exchange.

The gel assay, circular dichroism, and differential scanning calorimetry results all demonstrate that a major monomer component of bcl2mid exists at low [K(+)] and an additional dimer component appears at high [K(+)]. This implies that bcl2mid is a good candidate for elucidating the mechanisms of structural conversion between different G-quadruplexes. We further discovered that the conversion between the monomer and dimer forms of bcl2mid does not occur at room temperature but is detected when heated above the melting point. In addition, the use of the lithium cation to keep the same ionic strength in a K(+) solution favors the formation of the bcl2mid dimer. We also found that the bcl2mid dimer is more stable than the monomer. However, after the bcl2mid monomer is formed in a K(+) solution, there is no appreciable structural conversion from the monomer to the dimer detected with addition of Li(+) at room temperature. Furthermore, the spectral changes of bcl2mid when transitioning from sodium form to potassium form take place upon K(+) titration. The absence of the dimer form for bcl2mid after the direct addition of 150 mM [K(+)] at room temperature suggests that the spectral changes are not due to rapid unfolding and refolding. In addition, this work reveals the conditions that would be useful for NMR studies of G-quadruplexes.