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Theory of DNA melting curves
Author(s) -
Fixman Marshall,
Freire Juan J.
Publication year - 1977
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.1977.360161209
Subject(s) - exponential function , helix (gastropod) , chemistry , electromagnetic coil , entropy (arrow of time) , exact solutions in general relativity , exponential growth , dna , thermodynamics , statistical physics , physics , mathematical analysis , mathematics , quantum mechanics , ecology , biochemistry , snail , biology
Exact algorithms for the calculation of melting curves of heterogeneous DNA with N base pairs apparently require computer time proportional to N 2 . However, it is shown that a decomposition of the loop entropy factor into a sum of I exponential functions (1) gives an extremely accurate approximation to the loop entropy factor for small values of I and (2) makes the computer time for the exact algorithms proportional to I · N . In effect, exact results for melting curves and lengths of helix or coil stretches are obtained with computer time comparable to that required for the Frank‐Kamenetskii approximation. The remarkable accuracy of the latter for the fraction of helical content (errors of 0.01–0.05) is confirmed, but appreciably larger errors are found for the lengths of helix or coil stretches (typical errors of 30–100%).