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Development of a high-throughput G4-FID assay for screening and evaluation of small molecules binding quadruplex nucleic acid structures

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Abstract

G4-FID (G-quadruplex fluorescent intercalator displacement) is a simple and fast method that allows to evaluate the affinity of a compound for G-quadruplex DNA and its selectivity towards duplex DNA. This assay is based on the loss of fluorescence of thiazole orange (TO) upon competitive displacement from DNA by a putative ligand. We describe here the development of a high-throughput version of this assay performed in 96-well microplates, and fully transposable to 384-well microplates. The test was calibrated with a set of G-quadruplex ligands characterized for their ability to bind quadruplex within a large range of affinity. The comparison of the results obtained in microplates and in cuvettes was conducted indicating a full agreement. Additionally, the spectral range of the test was enlarged using two other fluorescent on/off probes whose absorption are red-shifted (TO-PRO-3) and blue-shifted (Hoechst 33258) as compared to that of TO. These labels enable to screen a large diversity of compounds with various optical properties, which was exemplified by evaluation of affinity and selectivity of the porphyrin TMPyP4 that could not be evaluated previously. Altogether, our study demonstrates that the HT-G4-FID assay offers the possibility to label a large variety of G-quadruplexes of biological interest and should enable screening of collections of putative G4-ligands of high structural diversity. It thus represents a powerful tool to bring into light new ligands able to discriminate between quadruplexes of different structures.

High-throughput screening and evaluation of quadruplex nucleic acid ligands

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Marie Perrot and Yoann Lebreton for their technical assistance, Dr. Jean-Louis Mergny and Phong Lan Thao Tran for fruitful discussion, and we gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Institut Curie (joint PhD fellowship to E.L.) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) for financial support to F.H. (ANR-09-BLAN-0355 "G4Toolbox").

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  1. Institut Curie, CNRS UMR-176, Centre Universitaire, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France

    Eric Largy, Florian Hamon & Marie-Paule Teulade-Fichou

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  1. Eric Largy
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  2. Florian Hamon
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  3. Marie-Paule Teulade-Fichou
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Correspondence to Marie-Paule Teulade-Fichou.

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Largy, E., Hamon, F. & Teulade-Fichou, MP. Development of a high-throughput G4-FID assay for screening and evaluation of small molecules binding quadruplex nucleic acid structures. Anal Bioanal Chem 400, 3419–3427 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-011-5018-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-011-5018-z

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