Mechanical unfolding of long human telomeric RNA (TERRA)

J. Ricardo Arias-Gonzalez, Miguel Garavís, Rebeca Bocanegra, Elías Herrero-Galán, Alfredo Villasante and Carlos Gonzalez
We report the first single molecule investigation of TERRA molecules. By using optical-tweezers and other biophysical techniques, we have found that long RNA constructions of up to 25 GGGUUA repeats form higher order structures comprised of single parallel G-quadruplexes blocks, which unfold at lower forces than their DNA counterparts.
DOI