Recognition of hairpin DNA from coil DNA by electrospray mass spectrometry with annealing strategy

This research presented an annealing strategy to identify hairpin DNA from coil DNA with the same base composition but different arrangements using electrospray mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). A series of single-stranded DNA were annealed with their complementary sequences, respectively. All the five pairs of hairpin DNA and coil DNA were unambiguously distinguished by ESI-MS with annealing strategy. This research offers a potential method to probe the DNA structure by comparing with mass spectral characteristics.