Small molecule-induced trinucleotide repeat contractions during in vitro DNA synthesis.

We demonstrated that a synthetic ligand NA, which selectively binds to a 5'-CAG-3'/5'-CAG-3' triad, induced repeat contractions during DNA polymerase-mediated primer extension through the CAG repeat template. A thorough capillary electrophoresis and sequencing analysis revealed that the d(CAG)20 template gave shortened nascent strands mainly containing 3-6 CTG units in the presence of NA.