What Stabilizes the LinPn Inorganic Double Helices?

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• 作者：A. K. Jissy ; Ayan Datta
• 刊名：The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：March 21, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：4
• 期：6
• 页码：1018-1022
• 全文大小：296K
• 年卷期：v.4,no.6(March 21, 2013)
• ISSN：1948-7185

文摘

Recently, inorganic double-helical structures based on simple lithium and phosphorus salts have been demonstrated. We have analyzed the nature of bonding in these double helices of Li_nP_n (n = 7鈥?). Similar to DNA, noncovalent interactions and cooperativity play an important role in stabilizing the inorganic double helices. Cooperativity imparts an additional stabilization of 4.5 to 10.1 kcal/mol per Li鈥揚 pair. In addition, the ionicity of Li鈥揚 units further augments the stability of these inorganic double-helix structures in contrast with the canonical base pairs in DNA, where noncovalent interactions determine the duplex stability. Unwinding is shown to be unfavorable, and cleavage of a few edge Li鈥揚 bonds leads to spontaneous self-healing into the intact double-helix tract.

Keywords:

DNA; double helix; inorganic helices; noncovalent interactions; DNA unwinding; self-healing