DNA‐Inspired Electrostatics
DOI: 10.1063/1.1325230
Under “physiological” conditions (a 0.1 molar solution of NaCl), a DNA molecule takes on the form of a disordered coil with a radius of gyration of several micrometers; if any lengths of the molecule come within 1 nm of one other, they strongly repel. But under different conditions—in a highly dilute aqueous solution that also contains a small concentration of polyvalent cations—the same DNA molecule condenses into a tightly packed, circumferentially wound torus. Figure 1a shows just such a DNA torus. Its average radius is about 50 nm, and the distance between the axes of neighboring, parallel portions of the molecule is only slightly larger than its diameter.
This article is only available in PDF format
More about the Authors
William M. Gelbart. UCLA.
Robijn F. Bruinsma. UCLA.
Philip A. Pincus. University of California, Santa Barbara.
V. Adrian Parsegian. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
