Published in

American Chemical Society, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 47(130), p. 15754-15755, 2008

DOI: 10.1021/ja804802u

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

DNA Attraction in Monovalent and Divalent Electrolytes

Journal article published in 2008 by Binquan Luan, Aleksei Aksimentiev ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Upload
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Policy details
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The dependence of the effective force on the distance between two DNA molecules was directly computed from a set of extensive all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. The simulations revealed that in a monovalent electrolyte the effective force is repulsive at short and long distances but can be attractive in the intermediate range. This attractive force is, however, too weak (approximately 5 pN per turn of a DNA helix) to induce DNA condensation in the presence of thermal fluctuations. In divalent electrolytes, DNA molecules were observed to form a bound state, where Mg(2+) ions bridged minor groves of DNA. The effective force in divalent electrolytes was predominantly attractive, reaching a maximum of 42 pN per one turn of a DNA helix.