No abstract

Lighting up: A G-quadruplex-specific fluorescent probe was designed combining the specificity of the pyridodicarboxamide motif for guanine quadruplexes and the fluorescence properties of thiazole orange. While the assembly of the two partners through a flexible linker leads to a nonselective probe, merging them in a single, rigid scaffold leads to a dye that elicits the properties required for G-quadruplex sensing.

Control by copper: CuII ions modulate the quadruplex affinity of the high‐affinity ligand 360A and denaturate the folded quadruplex form of DNA 22AG to an unfolded form. So removal of copper through complexation enables the cycling of both 360A quadruplex affinity and quadruplex unfolding.