Structural Insights into Regulation of Insulin Expression Involving i-Motif DNA Structures in the Insulin-Linked Polymorphic Region

The insulin linked polymorphic region (ILPR) is a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) region of DNA in the promoter of the insulin gene that regulates transcription of insulin. This region is known to form the alternative DNA structures, i-motifs and G-quadruplexes. Individuals have different sequence variants of VNTR repeats and although previous work investigated the effects of some variants on G-quadruplex formation, there is not a clear picture of the relationship between the sequence diversity, the DNA structures formed, and the functional effects on insulin gene expression. Here we show that different sequence variants of the ILPR form different DNA secondary structures and insulin expression is dependent on formation of i-motif and G-quadruplex structures. The first crystal structure and dynamics of an intramolecular i-motif also reveal sequences within the loop regions forming additional stabilising interactions, which are critical to formation of the stable i-motif structures that modulate insulin expression. The outcomes of this work reveal the detail in formation of stable i-motif DNA structures, with potential for rational based drug design for compounds to alter insulin gene expression. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.