Oligonucleotides and their derivatives as tools for investigations of protein-nucleic acid interactions in template biocatalysis.

Abstract

On the basis of quantitative characteristics (Kd, Km, Gibbs energy values) for the interaction of oligonucleotides with template and primer site of eucaryotic and procaryotic DNA polymerases, a general model of template-primer interaction with these enzymes was suggested. The interactions of AMV- and HIV- reverse transcriptases with various 5'-derived oligonucleotides and with human DNA polymerase alpha and Klenow fragment are compared. The results obtained suggest a method to improve selectively the affinity of an oligonucleotide primer to RNA template with AMV- and HIV-reverse transcriptases.