Kethoxal (3-ethoxy-1,1-dihydroxy-2-butanone) is an organic compound that has

antiviral Antiviral drugs are a class of medication used for treating viral infections. Most antivirals target specific viruses, while a broad-spectrum antiviral is effective against a wide range of viruses. Antiviral drugs are a class of antimicrobials ...

and

anaplasmosis Anaplasmosis is a tick-borne disease affecting ruminants, dogs, and horses, and is caused by ''Anaplasma'' bacteria. Anaplasmosis is an infectious but not contagious disease. Anaplasmosis can be transmitted through mechanical and biological vector ...

properties. It also forms a stable covalent

adduct In chemistry, an adduct (; alternatively, a contraction of "addition product") is a product of a direct addition of two or more distinct molecules, resulting in a single reaction product containing all atoms of all components. The resultant is ...

with

guanine Guanine () (symbol G or Gua) is one of the four main nucleotide bases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine ( uracil in RNA). In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine. The guanine nucleoside ...

, which makes it useful for

nucleic acid structure determination Experimental approaches of determining the Biomolecular structure, structure of nucleic acids, such as RNA and DNA, can be largely classified into biophysics, biophysical and biochemistry, biochemical methods. Biophysical methods use the fundamen ...

Nucleic acid binding

Kethoxal, as with other 1,2-di

carbonyl In organic chemistry, a carbonyl group is a functional group with the formula , composed of a carbon atom double bond, double-bonded to an oxygen atom, and it is divalent at the C atom. It is common to several classes of organic compounds (such a ...

compounds, reacts with nucleic acids. It has high specificity for guanine over other

ribonucleotide In biochemistry, a ribonucleotide is a nucleotide containing ribose as its pentose component. It is considered a molecular precursor of nucleic acids. Nucleotides are the basic building blocks of DNA and RNA. Ribonucleotides themselves are basic mo ...

s. In whole RNA, it reacts preferentially with guanine residues that are not involved in

hydrogen-bond In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (H-bond) is a specific type of molecular interaction that exhibits partial covalent character and cannot be described as a purely electrostatic force. It occurs when a hydrogen (H) atom, covalently bonded to a mo ...

ing. It can thus be used to probe the interactions involved with the

secondary structure Protein secondary structure is the local spatial conformation of the polypeptide backbone excluding the side chains. The two most common Protein structure#Secondary structure, secondary structural elements are alpha helix, alpha helices and beta ...

and other binding interactions of RNA and help with

nucleic acid sequence A nucleic acid sequence is a succession of Nucleobase, bases within the nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or RNA (GACU) molecule. This succession is denoted by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the orde ...

analysis. The binding is reversible, which allows the kethoxal to be removed and the original RNA recovered.

References

{{Reflist * Diols Ketones Ethoxy compounds Antiviral drugs