3,3'-diethylthiatricarbocyanine iodide: a highly sensitive chiroptical reporter of DNA helicity and sequence

Using UV-vis absorption and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopies, we explored the binding interactions of 3,3'-diethylthiatricarbocyanine iodide (Cy7) with polynucleotides of different sequences and helicity. CD showed to be a very diagnostic tool giving different spectroscopic chiroptical signatures for all explored DNA sequences upon Cy7 binding. Cy7 was able to spectroscopically discriminate between the right handed B-DNA of poly(dG-dC)(2) and its left handed Z-DNA counterpart induced by spermine or Co(III)hexamine via nearly opposite induced circular dichroic signal.