Nucleic Acid Structural Energetics

Mechanisms and uses of hydrogen exchange.

Recent work has largely completed our understanding of the hydrogen-exchange chemistry of unstructured proteins and nucleic acids. Some of the high-energy structural fluctuations that determine the hydrogen-exchange behavior of native macromolecules have been explained; others remain elusive. A growing number of applications are exploiting hydrogen-exchange behavior to study difficult molecular...

Characterizing non-covalent nucleic acid interactions with small molecules and proteins by calorimetry

The expression or replication of genes is affected by the binding of small molecule ligands and proteins to nucleic acid sequences. Such binding events are critical for the physiological integrity of organisms and therefore are of fundamental interest to life scientists. Recently, the thermodynamics driving these interactions have also become important to pharmaceutical scientists investigating...

Periodic modeling of zeolite Ti-LTA.

We have proposed a combination of density functional theory calculations and interatomic potential-based simulations to study the structural, electronic, and mechanical properties of pure-silica zeolite Linde Type A (LTA), as well as two titanium-doped compositions. The energetics of the titanium distribution within the zeolite framework suggest that the inclusion of a second titanium atom with...

Phospholipid-Nucleic Acid Complexation: Biomolecular Energetics of DNA-Mg2+-Phosphatidylcholine Ternary Complex Formation, Compaction and Relevance as Lipoplex Formulation

Thermodynamic features related to preparation and use of self-assemblies formed between multilamellar and unilamellar zwitterionic liposomes and polynucleotides with various conformation and sizes are presented. The divalent metal cation induced adsorption, aggregation and adhesion between single- and double-stranded polyribonucleotides and phosphatidylcholine vesicles was followed by different...

The nucleic acid of African Horse-Sickness Virus