Investigation of thermal stability of primary structure of nucleic acids
Keywords:
polynucleotide, DNA, thermal stability, differential scanning calorimetryAbstract
The thermal stability of natural DNA and polynucleotides (polyA, polyG, polyC, polyU) was studied by the method of differential scanning microcalorimetry. The thermograms of studied materials in the temperature range from 20 to 300°С have been obtained. The specific feature of experimental curves for all samples is the presence of sharp exothermic peaks. For the moist sample of DNA (the water content is higher than 5%) the endothermic peak near 100°С has been found. It is supposed that exothermic peaks at high temperatures (about 250°С for polynucleotides and 160°С for DNA) result from irreversible processes of thermal degradation of initial structure of polymers. The endothermic peak for a moist DNA sample is caused by the melting of secondary structure of DNA that may be formed at low humidity. The temperatures and temperature intervals of destruction process have been determined, and the values of effective heat of a thermal destruction and its activation energy were calculated. It was shown that all polynucleotides have the essential differences of the thermal stability.
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