A Spectroscopy of Helix Melting
Abstract
The overriding theoretical problem in DNA calculations is twofold. Firstly, the size of the molecule is large and even the size of the smallest repeat unit, the homopolymer unit cell, is of dimensionality of 123 by 123. Biologically significant units are many times this size. The second factor is that one must deal with the nonlinearity of the system. A most important biophysics problem is the dynamics of strand separation. The complete breakdown of a bond is necessarily a nonlinear effect. Methods are available to calculate nonlinear behavior but because of the calculational complexity they require simple systems. The harmonic approximation handles large interacting systems but it is difficult to incorporate nonlinear effects. Our approach has been basically a two pronged approach. We analyze the full nonlinear problem in a simple model for DNA and we do the full dimensional calculation in the harmonic approximation where the nonlinear behavior is approximated by MSPA adjustments to the nonlinear elements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA252739
Entities
People
- E. W. Prohofsky
Organizations
- Purdue University