Does Cation Size Affect Occupancy and Electrostatic Screening of the Nucleic Acid Ion Atmosphere?

ABSTRACT: Electrostatics are central to all aspects of nucleic acid behavior, including their folding, condensation, and binding to other molecules, and the energetics of these processes are profoundly influenced by the ion atmosphere that surrounds nucleic acids. Given the highly complex and dynamic nature of the ion atmosphere, understanding its properties and effects will require synergy between computational modeling and experiment. Prior computational models and experiments suggest that cation occupancy in the ion atmosphere depends on the size of the cation. However, the computational models have not been independently tested, and the experimentally observed effects were small. Here, we evaluate a computational model of ion size effects by experimentally testing a blind prediction made from th

SUBMITTER: Gebala M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5010015 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature