2015/08/19 by Maity, Arghya, Singh, Amar, Singh, Navin
#Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1508.04528
Intracellular positive ions neutralise negative charges on the phosphates of a DNA strand conferring greater strength on the hydrogen bonds that connect complementary strands into a double helix and so confer enhanced stability. Beyond a certain value of salt concentration, the DNA molecule displays a unstable nature \it in vivo as well as \it in vitro. We consider a wide range of salt concentrations and study the stability of the DNA double helix using a statistical model. Through numerical calculations we attempt to explain the different behaviour exhibited by DNA molecules in this range. We compare our results with experimental data and find a close agreement.