Geometric formalism for DNA quadruplex folding

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.