Abstract
One of the most exciting events in recent years in molecular biology was the discovery of the left-handed Z form of the DNA double helix. Originally found in linear self-complementary d(GC)x·d(GC)x polymers1 and oligomers2 in non-physiological conditions (a rather high salt concentration), it was recently shown to be easily enough adopted in physiological conditions when purine–pyrimidine sequences are inserted into superhelical DNA3–9. From such a system, superhelical DNA carrying an artificial purine–pyrimidine insert, we can obtain data allowing the determination of the energy of the junction between the B and Z stretches, Fj, and the free energy change ΔFBZ per base pair (bp). We present here a simple thermodynamic consideration of the B–Z transition in such a system. By applying the results to experimental data3–9 we have shown that the thermodynamic parameters for both sequences studied so far (d(GC)x·d(GC)x and d(GT)x·d(AC)x) are similar and equal to Fj = 4–5 kcal per mol per junction and ΔFBZ = 0.5÷0.7 kcal per mol per bp.
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Frank-Kamenetskii, M., Vologodskii, A. Thermodynamics of the B–Z transition in superhelical DNA. Nature 307, 481–482 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/307481a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/307481a0
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