Interactions between biomolecules govern cellular biology. While protein/protein and protein/nucleic acid (DNA, RNA) interactions-and, to a lesser extent, RNA/RNA and RNA/DNA interactions-have been extensively described, a question remains as to whether and how non-canonical DNA structures might interact with each other. This is of particular interest for guanine (G)-rich sequences that can fold into G-quadruplex (G4) structures: Individual G4s are currently studied for their involvement in a myriad of cellular events (mostly pertaining to the control of gene expression), and, more recently, the interactions between two G4s have been scrutinized as being part of a novel gene expression regulatory mechanism involving chromatin remodeling through G4-mediated loop formation. The question that needs to be answered is whether G4s or their corresponding G-rich sequences are involved. We present here a series of results collected using a combination of sequences, experimental conditions, and techniques, which led us to the conclusion that G4/G4 intermolecular interactions are mostly governed by primary sequence interactions in vitro.

Department of Medicine UofL Health Brown Cancer Center University of Louisville 505 S Hancock St Louisville KY 40202 United States

Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de l'Université de Bourgogne Dijon 21078 France

Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Královopolská 135 Brno 612 65 Czech Republic

Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences Ecole Polytechnique CNRS INSERM Institut Polytechnique de Paris Palaiseau 91120 France

State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Nanjing University Nanjing 210023 China

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