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Denaturation of RNA with dimethyl sulfoxide
Author(s) -
Strauss James H.,
Kelly Regis B.,
Sinsheimer Robert L.
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.1968.360060604
Subject(s) - dimethyl sulfoxide , chemistry , rna , polynucleotide , spheroplast , bacteriophage ms2 , denaturation (fissile materials) , solvent , bacteriophage , sulfoxide , chromatography , biochemistry , organic chemistry , escherichia coli , nuclear chemistry , coat protein , gene
The denaturation of single‐stranded and double‐stranded RNA's in solutions with varying proportions of dimethyl sulfoxide has been followed by changes in absorbancy, optical rotation, and—with a double‐stranded form of bacteriophage of MS2 RNA— infectivity for bacterial spheroplasts. By these criteria the RNA's studied, including the synthetic polynucleotide rG:rC, are completely denatured at room temperature in high concentrations of this solvent. In lower concentrations, the T m of the RNA preparation is decreased only slightly as the dimethyl sulfoxide concentration is raised until a critical concentration is reached. The T m falls sharply with small further increases in dimethyl sulfoxide concentration. Sedimentation studies can be conducted directly in these media. The determination of sedimentation velocity in 99% dimethyl sulfoxide containing 0.001 M EDTA provides a reliable estimate of RNA molecular weights.