ISSN: 0970-938X (Print) | 0976-1683 (Electronic)
An International Journal of Medical Sciences
Henry M Sobell
University of Rochester, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts : Biomed Res
DOI: 10.4066/biomedicalresearch-C8-023
Premeltons are examples of emergent structures (i.e., structural solitons) that arise spontaneously in DNA due to the presence of nonlinear excitations in its structure. They are of two kinds: B-B or A-A premeltons form at specific DNA-regions to nucleate site-specific DNA melting. These are stationary and being globally nontopological, undergo breather motions that allow drugs and dyes to intercalate into DNA. B-A or A-B premeltons, on the other hand, are mobile and being globally topological, act as phase-boundaries transforming Binto A- DNA during the structural phase-transition. They are not expected to undergo breather-motions. A key feature of both types of premeltons is the presence of an intermediate structural-form in their central regions (proposed as being a transition-state intermediate in DNA-melting and in the Bto A- transition), which differs from either A- DNA or B- DNA called beta-DNA, this is both metastable and hyperflexible and contains an alternating sugar-puckering pattern along the polymer-backbone combined with the partial-unstacking (in its lower energy-forms) of every other base-pair. Beta- DNA is connected to either B- or to A- DNA on either side by boundaries possessing a gradation of nonlinear structuralchange, these being called the kink and the antikink regions. The presence of premeltons in DNA leads to a unifying theory to understand much of DNA physical-chemistry and molecularbiology. The premeltons are predicted to define the 5â and 3â ends of genes in naked-DNA and DNA in active-chromatin, this having important implications for understanding physical aspects of the initiation, elongation and termination of RNAsynthesis during transcription. For these and other reasons, the model will be of broader interest to the general audience working in these areas. The model explains a wide variety of data and carries within it several experimental predictions all readily testables as will be described in my talk.
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