About the Authors

Eliza Wyszko

Affiliation Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland

Florian Mueller

Affiliation Pentafolium-Soft, Rosengarten, Germany

Marta Gabryelska

Affiliation Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland

Angelika Bondzio

Affiliation Institute for Biochemistry, Veterinary Medicine, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Mariusz Popenda

Affiliation Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland

Jan Barciszewski

Affiliation Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland

Volker A. Erdmann

vae@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Affiliations Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Erdmann Technologies GmbH, Berlin, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interests: Dr. Volker A. Erdmann and Dr. Eliza Wyszko are inventors of the following patent: Patent: “RNAzym” (PCT/DE2010/000159). Titel: Pharmazeutische Zusammensetzung zur Behandlung von Nebenwirkungen durch Gabe von Spiegelmeren Inventor: ERDMANN, V.A. [DE]; WYSZKO, Eliza [Pll 1. Registered by: Freie Universität Berlin rDEl. Registration date: 08.02.2010 l. Volker A. Erdmann is inventor of the following patent: Patent: “L-DNA" (PCT/DE2012/000008). Titel: Pharmazeutische Zusammensetzung enthalten1:t L-DNA. Inventor: ERDMANN, V.A. [DE]. Registered by: ERDMANN, V.A. [DE]. Registration date: 02.01 .2012 1. Both patents have been transferred to the “Erdmann Technologies GmbH,” a company founded by Dr. Volker A. Erdmann in July, 2013. The company's goals are to develop anticancer and antiviral pharmaceuticals on the basis of Spiegelzymes. Dr. Florian F. Mueller is the founder and owner of PENTAFOLIUM-SOFT, a company dedicated to develop computer software to predict secondary structures in DNA and RNA. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: VAE EW JB. Performed the experiments: EW. Wrote the paper: VAE JB EW FM. Performed Western blot and real-time PCR experiments: MG. Documentation of the polyacrylamide gels and the quantitative evaluation: AB. Participated in the discussion of the results: VAE JB EW MG MP. Performed the structural modelling for Spiegelzyme target interactions and discovered the spatial arrangements of the L- and D-nucleotides within L/D-base pairs and found that the resulting heterochiral double helices can show either right- or left-handedness: FM. Calculated dihedral angles within complexes and discussed models of the complexes: MP.