Title
Temperature effect on poly(dA).poly(dT): molecular dynamics simulation studies of polymeric and oligomeric constructs.
Abstract
Understanding unwinding and melting of double helical DNA is very important to characterize role of DNA in replication, transcription, translation etc. Sequence dependent melting thermodynamics is used extensively for detecting promoter regions but melting studies are generally done for short oligonucleotides. This study reports several molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of homopolymeric poly(dA).poly(dT) as regular oligonucleotide fragments as well as its corresponding polymeric constructs with water and charge-neutralizing counterions at different temperatures ranging from 300 to 400 K. We have eliminated the end-effect or terminal peeling propensity by employing MD simulation of DNA oligonucleotides in such a manner that gives rise to properties of polymeric DNA of infinite length. The dynamic properties such as basepairing and stacking geometry, groove width, backbone conformational parameters, bending, distribution of counter ions and number of hydrogen bonds of oligomeric and polymeric constructs of poly(dA).poly(dT) have been analyzed. The oligomer shows terminal fraying or peeling effect at temperatures above 340 K. The polymer shows partial melting at elevated temperatures although complete denaturations of basepairs do not take place. The analysis of cross strand hydrogen bonds shows that the number of N-H···O hydrogen bonds increases with increase in temperature while C-H···O hydrogen bond frequencies decrease with temperature. Restructuring of counterions in the minor groove with temperature appear as initiation of melting in duplex structures.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1007/s10822-014-9755-x
Journal of computer-aided molecular design
Keywords
Field
DocType
Hydrogen bonds,DNA melting,DNA oligomer,DNA polymer
Oligomer,Crystallography,Polymer,Chemistry,DNA,Oligonucleotide,Molecular dynamics,Hydrogen bond,Stacking,Nucleic acid thermodynamics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
28
7
1573-4951
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
6
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sanchita Mukherjee100.34
Sangeeta Kundu200.34
Dhananjay Bhattacharyya3173.46