Geometric Formalism for DNA Quadruplex Folding

Abstract Understanding the control of self‐assembly and stereochemical properties of DNA higher order architectural folds is of fundamental importance in biology as well as biochemical technological applications. Guanine‐rich DNA sequences can form tetrahelical architectures termed quadruplexes. A formalism is presented describing the interdependency of a set of structural descriptors as a geometric basis for folding of unimolecular quadruplex topologies. It represents a standard for interpretation of structural characteristics of quadruplexes, and is comprehensive in explicitly harmonizing the results of published literature with a unified language. The formalism is a fundamental step towards prediction of unimolecular quadruplex folding topologies from primary sequence.