Melting characteristics of highly supercoiled DNA.
The effect of high supercoil densities on the melting characteristics of a supercoiled DNA has been studied. It is found that although the melting temperature increases abruptly on converting a linear DNA merely into the relaxed circular form, it falls back substantially at high supercoil densities. It is further predicted, in such cases, that the number of melted base pairs should be significantly enhanced even at the physiological temperature, which may facilitate the binding of other molecules to the highly supercoiled DNA.
Sen
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S
Biophysics Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 37 Belgachia Road, Calcutta 700037 India.
Lahiri
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A
Majumdar
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R