Editorial: Non-canonical nucleic acid structures, functions and their applications for understanding human genetic diseases

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Roshan Satange, National Chung Hsing University; Peng Jin, Emory University; Ming-Hon Hou, National Chung Hsing University; Ambadas B Rode, NCR Biotech Science Cluster, Faridabad, India
• Language: English
• Date: 2023-04-05
• Publisher: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2023 Satange, Jin, Hou and Rode.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2023.1188978
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: FRONTIERS IN GENETICS
• Volume: 14
• Start Page: 1188978
• End Page: 1188978
• Grant/Funding Information: AR was supported by the funding from DBT Govt. of India (Ramalingaswami re-entry fellowship grant), and DST Govt. of India, SERB-SRG (SRG/2019/000206), SERB-CRG (CRG/2022/004570).
• Keywords: Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Science & Technology; genetic diseases; cancers; Genetics & Heredity; neurological diseases; functional nucleic acids; non-canonical nucleic acids
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery; Biology, Bioinformatics

Abstract

Nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), are macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life. Besides storing genetic information, nucleic acids regulate key biological processes inside the cell, including genes expression, DNA replication, recombination and repair. They are also involved in diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders therefore represent potential drug targets. The DNA and RNA execute their regulatory functions by adopting diverse secondary and tertiary conformations which are essential for specific molecular recognition of their cognate targets. Nucleic acids adopt diverse conformations through several types of hydrogen bonding patterns. The canonical double-stranded structure consists of two antiparallel strands intertwined by Watson-Crick A-T and G-C base pairs. On the other hand, the non-canonical structures include G-quadruplexes, i-motifs, triplexes and cruciform hairpins, etc. are formed by alternative base pairings such as Hoogsteen and Wobble base pairs. Given their crucial biological functions, non-canonical structures are of great interests in genetics, molecular biology and drug discovery.