News

Lutan Liu (FIBER Postdoctoral Researcher) from the Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research (FIBER) has received a Poster Award at the 25th International Round Table on Nucleosides, Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids (IRT2024) and the 8th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Nucleic Acid Chemistry.

The International Round Table on Nucleosides, Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids (IRT) is one of the world’s largest symposia in the nucleic acid field. It is hosted by the international academic organization IS3NA (International Society for Nucleosides, Nucleotides, and Nucleic Acids) and held biennially in different countries around the world. IRT presents a Poster Award to recognize outstanding poster presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. At IRT2024, the Poster Award was presented to 12 researchers, including Dr. Liu. The award details are as follows.

Award：IRT2024 Poster Award
Awardee ：Lutan Liu（Konan FIBER Postdoctral researcher）
Title：Elucidating the Role of Groove Hydration on Stability and Functions of Biased DNA Duplexes in Cell-Like Chemical Environments
Lutan Liu¹, Saptarshi Ghosh¹, Shuntaro Takahashi^1,2, Tatsuya Ohyama¹, Naoki Sugimoto^1*
Affiliration：1) Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research (FIBER), Konan University, 2) Graduate School of Frontiers of Innovative Research in Science and Technology (FIRST), Konan University

Research Summary: DNA is a linear molecule containing four distinct bases (adenine: A, guanine: G, cytosine: C, thymine: T). These bases form base pairs (A with T, and G with C) to create a double helix structure. This study revealed that in double helices biased toward GC or AT base pairs, water molecules bind (hydrate) differently within the double helix groove. This demonstrated that existing methods for predicting the stability of DNA double helices are unsuitable for DNA containing these biased base pairs. Therefore, by incorporating a new hydration parameter into the stability prediction model, we successfully corrected for the hydration effect on the double helix groove, improving the prediction accuracy for the stability of DNA with biased base pairs. Within cells, skewed base pairs play a critically important role in controlling fundamental life processes such as DNA replication and transcription. Consequently, these findings provide crucial insights for simulating cellular processes like division, differentiation, and carcinogenesis at the genetic level, and are expected to contribute significantly to future advancements in medical engineering and drug discovery.