Unveiled electric profiles within hydrogen bonds suggest DNA base pairs with similar bond strengths

Electrical forces are the background of all the interactions occurring in biochemical systems. From here and by using a combination of ab-initio and ad-hoc models, we introduce the first description of electric field profiles with intrabond resolution to support a characterization of single bond for...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ruiz Blanco, Yasser B., Almeida, Y., Sotomayor Torres, Clivia M.|||0000-0001-9986-2716, García, Yamila
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:204853
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/204853
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0185638
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Base Pairing
DNA
Hydrogen Bonding
Nucleic Acid Conformation
Descripción
Sumario:Electrical forces are the background of all the interactions occurring in biochemical systems. From here and by using a combination of ab-initio and ad-hoc models, we introduce the first description of electric field profiles with intrabond resolution to support a characterization of single bond forces attending to its electrical origin. This fundamental issue has eluded a physical description so far. Our method is applied to describe hydrogen bonds (HB) in DNA base pairs. Numerical results reveal that base pairs in DNA could be equivalent considering HB strength contributions, which challenges previous interpretations of thermodynamic properties of DNA based on the assumption that Adenine/Thymine pairs are weaker than Guanine/Cytosine pairs due to the sole difference in the number of HB. Thus, our methodology provides solid foundations to support the development of extended models intended to go deeper into the molecular mechanisms of DNA functioning.