ESI mass spectrometric exploration of selective recognition of G-quadruplex in c-myb oncogene promoter using a novel flexible cyclic polyamide.

In this research, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) was used to probe the binding selectivity of a flexible cyclic polyamide (cβ) to G-quadruplexes from the long G-rich sequences in the c-myb oncogene promoter. The results show that three G-rich sequences, including d[(GGA)3GGTCAC(GGA)4], d[(GGA)4GAA(GGA)4], and d[(GGA)3GGTCAC(GGA)4GAA(GGA)4] species in the c-myb promoter can form parallel G-quadruplexes, and cβ selectively binds towards these G-quadruplexes over both several other G-quadruplexes and the duplex DNA. These properties of cβ have profound implications on future studies of the regulation of c-myb oncogene expression.