Calorimetric measurements of the transition enthalpy of DNA in aqueous urea solutions.
The helix-coil equilibrium of DNA is delicately affected by the nature of the solvent. In this investigation the helical secondary structure was destabilized by an increasing concentration of urea. We found a linear dependence of the transition enthalpy deltaH on the urea concentration for calf thymus DNA as well as for salmon sperm DNA.
D000818:Animals; D002151:Calorimetry; D002417:Cattle; D004247:DNA; D007700:Kinetics; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics; D013950:Thymus Gland; D014508:Urea
D014508:Urea; D004247:DNA