Kinetic discrimination in recognition of DNA quadruplex targets by guanine-rich heteroquadruplex-forming PNA probes.

Guanine-rich peptide nucleic acid probes hybridize to DNA G quadruplex targets with high affinity, forming PNA-DNA heteroquadruplexes. We report a surprising degree of kinetic discrimination for PNA heteroquadruplex formation with a series of DNA targets. The fastest hybridization is observed for targets folded into parallel morphologies.