Premium
The effects of cations and diamines on the viscosity of T2 DNA
Author(s) -
BaxterGabbard Karen,
Fraser Dean
Publication year - 1974
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.1974.360130114
Subject(s) - chemistry , spermidine , dna , viscosity , bacteriophage , putrescine , folding (dsp implementation) , biochemistry , thermodynamics , enzyme , physics , escherichia coli , gene , electrical engineering , engineering
The viscosity of the DNA of T2 bacteriophage has been studied with the aim of understanding the folding of the DNA in the phage head. Thus the results of previous workers have been extended into a range of concentrations and mixtures of cations and polyamines simulating the conditions obtaining in actual phage heads. Difficulties in obtaining reproducible results with DNA in 0.001 M NaCl have been attributed to the presence of traces of protein, perhaps nulease(s), that can be eliminated by hot‐phenol extraction of the DNA. The results have been negative in the sense that the minimum viscosity obtained (120–140 dl/g) indicates a molecule that is far from tightly folded and in that viscosities in this range can be obtained with a simple mixture of Na + and Mg ++ . No specificity of the diamines putrescine and spermidine is seen; they are simply surrogate cations.