Open AccessControlling the Morphology in DNA Condensation and Precipitation
Author(s) -
Maria F. V. Pinto,
M. Carmen Morán,
Maria G. Miguel,
Björn Lindman,
Amália S. Jurado,
Alberto A. C. C. Pais
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
biomacromolecules
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.689
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1526-4602
pISSN - 1525-7797
DOI - 10.1021/bm900211j
Subject(s) - precipitation , chemistry , protamine , dna , crystallography , molecule , scanning electron microscope , condensation , morphology (biology) , population , chemical engineering , materials science , organic chemistry , biochemistry , thermodynamics , biology , heparin , physics , genetics , demography , sociology , meteorology , engineering , composite material
This work addresses the influence of solution inhomogeneity on conformation, aggregation, and coil/globule and bundle/single chain coexistence of T4 DNA molecules. The inhomogeneity is induced by mixing two solutions containing, respectively, protamine and DNA, with different relative concentrations, but aiming at producing the same final concentrations. The study was conducted by means of fluorescence microscopy (FM), complemented with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is shown that the degree of precipitation, the structures formed, and the relative population of compacted and unfolded structures are highly dependent on the method of preparation of the mixtures that contain the DNA/protamine complexes. Most of the structures reported in the literature, that is, overcharged/undercharged globules, toroids, chains internally segregated, and bundles composed of several chains were observed in our different mixtures of fixed final concentration.
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