Hydration Shells of DNA from the Point of View of Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy.

ABSTRACT: Hydration plays a fundamental role in DNA structure and functioning. However, the hydration shell has been studied only up to the scale of 10-20 water molecules per nucleotide. In the current work, hydration shells of DNA were studied in a solution by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The THz spectra of three DNA solutions (in water, 40 mm MgCl2 and 150 mM KCl) were transformed using an effective medium model to obtain dielectric permittivities of the water phase of solutions. Then, the parameters of two relaxation bands related to bound and free water molecules, as well as to intermolecular oscillations, were calculated. The hydration shells of DNA differ from undisturbed water by the presence of strongly bound water molecules, a higher number of free molecules and an increased number o

SUBMITTER: Penkova NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8538832 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature