negatively charged nucleic acids usually do not interact with the negatively charged amino acids glutamate and aspartate due to charge repulsion. Interestingly, Neißner et al. show that glutamate residues are easily protonated and able to form strong hydrogen bonds with phosphodiester groups.

My first post on bsky - I am proud to share the fruits of a huge collaborative effort spearheaded by the incredible @prieto-garcia.bsky.social published in Science. doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Thanks to @idikic.bsky.social for the great experience and for making this happen. Here is what we found 1/3.