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DNA-DNA interactions in tight supercoils are described by a small effective charge density.

ABSTRACT: DNA-DNA interactions are important for genome compaction and transcription regulation. In studies of such complex processes, DNA is often modeled as a homogeneously charged cylinder and its electrostatic interactions are calculated within the framework of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. Commonly, a charge adaptation factor is used to address limitations of this theoretical approach. Despite considerable theoretical and experimental efforts, a rigorous quantitative assessment of this parameter is lacking. Here, we comprehensively characterized DNA-DNA interactions in the presence of monovalent ions by analyzing the supercoiling behavior of single DNA molecules held under constant tension. Both a theoretical model and coarse-grained simulations of this process revealed a surprisingly small effective DNA charge of 40% of the nominal charge density, which was additionally supported by all-atom molecular dynamics simulations.

SUBMITTER: Maffeo C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3170404 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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DNA-DNA interactions in tight supercoils are described by a small effective charge density.

Maffeo Christopher C Schöpflin Robert R Brutzer Hergen H Stehr René R Aksimentiev Aleksei A Wedemann Gero G Seidel Ralf R

Physical review letters 20101004 15

DNA-DNA interactions are important for genome compaction and transcription regulation. In studies of such complex processes, DNA is often modeled as a homogeneously charged cylinder and its electrostatic interactions are calculated within the framework of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. Commonly, a charge adaptation factor is used to address limitations of this theoretical approach. Despite considerable theoretical and experimental efforts, a rigorous quantitative assessment of this parameter is ...[more]

PMID: 21230940

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Project description:Phosphate chemistry is involved in many key biological processes yet the underlying mechanism often remains unclear. For theoretical analysis to effectively complement experimental mechanistic analysis, it is essential to develop computational methods that can capture the complexity of the underlying potential energy surface and allow for sufficient sampling of the configurational space. To this end, we report the parameterization of an approximate density functional theory, Self-Consistent-Charge Density-Functional Tight-Binding (SCC-DFTB) method for systems containing phosphorus. Compared to high-level density functional theory and ab initio (MP2 and G3B3) results, the standard second-order parameterization is shown to give reliable structures for a diverse set of phosphate compounds but inaccurate energetics. With the on-site third-order terms included, referred to as SCC-DFTBPA, calculated proton affinities of phosphate compounds are substantially improved, although it remains difficult to obtain reliable proton affinity for both phosphates and compounds that do not contain phosphorus, indicating that further improvement in the formulation of SCC-DFTB is still a challenge to meet. To make SCC-DFTB applicable to phosphate reactions in the current (on-site-third-order-only) formulation, a "reaction-specific" parameterization, referred to as SCC-DFTBPR, is developed based on hydrolysis reactions of model phosphate species. Benchmark calculations in both the gas-phase and solution-phase indicate that SCC-DFTBPR gives reliable structural properties and semi-quantitative energetics for phosphate hydrolysis reactions. Since the number of reaction-specific parameters is small, it is likely that SCC-DFTBPR is applicable to a broad set of phosphate species. Indeed, for 56 reaction exothermicities and 47 energy barriers related to RNA catalysis model reactions collected from the QCRNA database, which involve molecules rather different from those used to parameterize SCC-DFTBPR, the corresponding root-mean-square difference between SCC-DFTBPR and high-level DFT results is only 5.3 kcal/mol. We hope that the parameterized SCC-DFTB models will complement NDDO based reaction-specific models (e.g., AM1-d/PhoT) and high-level ab initio QM/MM methods in better understanding the mechanism of phosphate chemistry in condensed phase, particularly biological systems.

Dataset Information

DNA-DNA interactions in tight supercoils are described by a small effective charge density.

Publications

DNA-DNA interactions in tight supercoils are described by a small effective charge density.

Similar Datasets

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