Twin Strands Of DNA Seek Each Other Out

New Scientist ^ | Andy Coghlan

[blam]

Twin strands of DNA seek each other out

11:38 28 January 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Andy Coghlan

Just like twins recognising and approaching each other across a crowded room, it now turns out that identical stretches of double-stranded DNA seek each other out in solution.

The unexpected finding could shed new light on how DNA repairs itself, how diseases such as cancer result from the miscopying of DNA, and how genes become tweaked during evolution.

Although the capacity for single complementary strands of DNA to attract each other is probably the best-known and most fundamental property of DNA, no-one knew until now that intact, double-stranded DNA could do this too.

Alexei Kornyshev of Imperial College London co-led a team that demonstrated the phenomenon by mixing together two distinct variants of double-stranded DNA in water – for identification, one kind gave off green light and the other red. After 2 weeks, reds and greens had congregated with their own kind.

Kornyshev says the phenomenon might explain how identical paired DNA strands align themselves ready for repairs, copying, and alteration through a process called homologous recombination.

The researchers think the recognition results from complementary electrostatic attractions between positively and negatively charged regions of identical double-helices. The pairing balances negative charges on phosphate ions in the sugar “backbone” of one helix with positive charges within the central “groove” of the other helix.

“Therefore, you would get a symmetry of positive and negative charges,” says Kornyshev. And the longer the strand, the stronger the attraction. Kornyshev says that much more work needs to be done to better understand and validate the phenomenon, and stresses that it has yet to be proved to occur in nature.

Journal reference: The Journal of Physical Chemistry B (DOI: 10.1021/jp7112297)

[coconutt2000]

After 2 weeks, reds and greens had congregated with their own kind.

DNA is inherently racist. /sarc

[MHGinTN]

Not ready for this yet, still studying yDNA.

[aruanan]

Gee, just think how crappy our PCR reactions would be without this.

[muawiyah]

If electrons are used to rig up the DNA infrastrucure, then it makes sense for protons to be used to run the computers inside them.

Avoids a lot of crosstalk problems in close quarters, and I believe the Van Der Waals effect (which involves full molecules repleat with electrons, protons and neutrons).

[editor-surveyor]

"The unexpected finding could shed new light on how DNA repairs itself, how diseases such as cancer result from the miscopying of DNA, and how genes become tweaked during evolution."

This is the best evidence yet that DNA prevents evolution from happening.

[metmom]

Kornyshev says that much more work needs to be done to better understand and validate the phenomenon, and stresses that it has yet to be proved to occur in nature.

Funny, they could be talking about evolution.

They accept evolution with nothing more than that but not this?