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Main Authors: Koning, Heidar J., Pullakhandam, Anuradha, Whitten, Andrew E., Bond, Charles S., Peyrard, Michel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04358
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author Koning, Heidar J.
Pullakhandam, Anuradha
Whitten, Andrew E.
Bond, Charles S.
Peyrard, Michel
author_facet Koning, Heidar J.
Pullakhandam, Anuradha
Whitten, Andrew E.
Bond, Charles S.
Peyrard, Michel
contents SAXS studies of four 60 base-pair DNA duplexes with sequences closely related to part of the GAGE6 (G-antigen 6) promoter have been performed to study the role of DNA conformations in solution and their potential relationship to DNA-protein binding. We show that the SAXS data can be analysed using a simple polymer model which nevertheless quantitatively describes the average persistence length and torsional rigidity of the DNA double helix to determine the statistical distribution of local conformations of the DNA in solution to a high accuracy. Although the SAXS data is averaged over time and all spatial orientations of the molecules, for sequences which have some asymmetry in the data we show that the conformations can be oriented with respect to the sequence. This allows specific features detected by the analysis to be precisely related to the DNA sequence, opening up new opportunities for SAXS to investigate the properties of DNA in solution. The biological implications of these results are discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_04358
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probing the statistics of sequence-dependent DNA conformations in solution using SAXS
Koning, Heidar J.
Pullakhandam, Anuradha
Whitten, Andrew E.
Bond, Charles S.
Peyrard, Michel
Biological Physics
Statistical Mechanics
SAXS studies of four 60 base-pair DNA duplexes with sequences closely related to part of the GAGE6 (G-antigen 6) promoter have been performed to study the role of DNA conformations in solution and their potential relationship to DNA-protein binding. We show that the SAXS data can be analysed using a simple polymer model which nevertheless quantitatively describes the average persistence length and torsional rigidity of the DNA double helix to determine the statistical distribution of local conformations of the DNA in solution to a high accuracy. Although the SAXS data is averaged over time and all spatial orientations of the molecules, for sequences which have some asymmetry in the data we show that the conformations can be oriented with respect to the sequence. This allows specific features detected by the analysis to be precisely related to the DNA sequence, opening up new opportunities for SAXS to investigate the properties of DNA in solution. The biological implications of these results are discussed.
title Probing the statistics of sequence-dependent DNA conformations in solution using SAXS
topic Biological Physics
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04358