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Pressure Dependence and Volumetric Properties of Short DNA Hairpins

Previous studies of short DNA hairpins have revealed that loop and stem sequences can significantly affect the thermodynamic stability of short DNA hairpins. Nevertheless, there has not been sufficient investigation into the pressure-temperature stability of DNA hairpins, and the current thermodynamic knowledge of DNA hairpins’ stability is limited to the temperature domain. In this work, we report the effect of hydrostatic pressure on the helix-coil transition temperature (TM) for eleven short DNA hairpins at different salt concentrations by performing UV-monitored melting. The studied hairpins form by intramolecular folding of 16-base self-complementary DNA oligo¬deoxy¬ribonucleotides. Model dependent (van’t Hoff) transition parameters such as ΔHvH and transition volume (ΔV) were estimated from analysis of optical melting transitions. Experiments revealed the ΔV for denaturation of these molecules range from -2.35 to +6.74 cm3mol-1. The difference in the volume change for this transition is related to differences in the hydration of these molecules.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/25408
Date14 December 2010
CreatorsAmiri, Amir Reza
ContributorsMacgregor, Robert B.
Source SetsUniversity of Toronto
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeAnimation

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