title: Predicting DNA duplex stability from the base sequence.
abstract: We report the complete thermodynamic library of all 10 Watson-Crick DNA nearest-neighbor interactions. We obtained the relevant thermodynamic data from calorimetric studies on 19 DNA oligomers and 9 DNA polymers. We show how these thermodynamic data can be used to calculate the stability and predict the temperature-dependent behavior of any DNA duplex structure from knowledge of its base sequence. We illustrate our method of calculation by using the nearest-neighbor data to predict transition enthalpies and free energies for a series of DNA oligomers. These predicted values are in excellent agreement with the corresponding values determined experimentally. This agreement demonstrates that a DNA duplex structure thermodynamically can be considered to be the sum of its nearest-neighbor interactions. Armed with this knowledge and the nearest-neighbor thermodynamic data reported here, scientists now will be able to predict the stability (delta G degree) and the melting behavior (delta H degree) of any DNA duplex structure from inspection of its primary sequence. This capability should prove valuable in numerous applications, such as predicting the stability of a probe-gene complex; selecting optimal conditions for a hybridization experiment; deciding on the minimum length of a probe; predicting the influence of a specific transversion or transition on the stability of an affected DNA region; and predicting the relative stabilities of local domains within a DNA duplex.
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Breslauer
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Blöcker
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Marky
mesh_terms: D001482:Base Composition; D001483:Base Sequence; D004247:DNA; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009691:Nucleic Acid Denaturation; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D004247:DNA