Fig. 6: Intercalation of LHS between symmetrical DNA base pairs.

a Stabilization of asymmetric LHS of 4 (sticks representation colour coded by element) by stacking interactions causes uneven rotation of surrounding DNA base pairs (cartoon representation in red), thus breaking DNA symmetry. Stacking interactions are represented as magenta dots, while pseudo hydrogen bonds are represented as blue dots. b Interaction network of DNA base pairs affected by LHS intercalation.