Open AccessPairing statistics and melting of random DNA oligomers: Finding your partner in superdiverse environments
Author(s) -
Simone Di Leo,
Stefano Marni,
Carlos A. Plata,
Tommaso P. Fraccia,
Gregory P. Smith,
Amos Maritan,
Samir Suweis,
Tommaso Bellini
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
plos computational biology/plos computational biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.628
H-Index - 182
eISSN - 1553-7358
pISSN - 1553-734X
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010051
Subject(s) - pairing , complementarity (molecular biology) , dna , physics , statistical physics , chemistry , biology , quantum mechanics , genetics , superconductivity
Understanding of the pairing statistics in solutions populated by a large number of distinct solute species with mutual interactions is a challenging topic, relevant in modeling the complexity of real biological systems. Here we describe, both experimentally and theoretically, the formation of duplexes in a solution of random-sequence DNA (rsDNA) oligomers of length L = 8, 12, 20 nucleotides. rsDNA solutions are formed by 4 L distinct molecular species, leading to a variety of pairing motifs that depend on sequence complementarity and range from strongly bound, fully paired defectless helices to weakly interacting mismatched duplexes. Experiments and theory coherently combine revealing a hybridization statistics characterized by a prevalence of partially defected duplexes, with a distribution of type and number of pairing errors that depends on temperature. We find that despite the enormous multitude of inter-strand interactions, defectless duplexes are formed, involving a fraction up to 15% of the rsDNA chains at the lowest temperatures. Experiments and theory are limited here to equilibrium conditions.