Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 158103 (2007) [4 pages]Stretching of Homopolymeric RNA Reveals Single-Stranded Helices and Base-StackingReceived 14 July 2006; published 12 April 2007 We have found strong supporting evidence for the helical structures of single-stranded nucleic acids by stretching individual molecules of polyadenylic acid [poly(A)] and polycytidylic acid [poly(C)]. Analyzing the force versus extension data using a two-state elastic model in which random-coil domains alternate with rigid helical domains allows one to extract the thermodynamic and structural properties. In addition, it also yields moderate to low cooperativity of the helix-coil transition for poly(A) and poly(C), respectively. © 2007 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.158103
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.158103
PACS:
87.14.Gg, 87.15.He, 87.15.La
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