Charge transport in poly(dG)-poly(dC) and poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA polymers

Abstract

We investigate the charge transport in synthetic DNA polymers built up from single types of base pairs. In the context of a polaron-like model, for which an electronic tight-binding system and bond vibrations of the double helix are coupled, we present estimates for the electron-vibration coupling strengths utilizing a quantum-chemical procedure. Subsequent studies concerning the mobility of polaron solutions, representing the state of a localized charge in unison with its associated helix deformation, show that the system for poly(dG)-poly(dC) and poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA polymers, respectively possess quantitatively distinct transport properties. While the former supports unidirectionally moving electron breathers attributed to highly efficient long-range conductivity the breather mobility in the latter case is comparatively restrained inhibiting charge transport. Our results are in agreement with recent experimental results demonstrating that poly(dG)-poly(dC) DNA molecules acts as a semiconducting nanowire and exhibits better conductance than poly(dA)-poly(dT) ones.

11 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Backbone-induced semiconducting behavior in short DNA wires
• Helicoidal model for DNA opening
• Fluctuation-Facilitated Charge Migration along DNA
• Nonlinear charge transport mechanism in periodic and disordered DNA

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Tight-binding parameters for charge transfer along DNA
• Structural fluctuations and quantum transport through DNA molecular wires: a combined molecular dynamics and model Hamiltonian approach
• A new type of localized fast moving electronic excitations in molecular chains
• Davydov's Solitons in a Homogeneous Nucleotide Chain
• Ab initio study of electron transport in dry poly(G)-poly(C) A-DNA strands
• Localization Properties of Electronic States in Polaron Model of poly(dG)-poly(dC) and poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA polymers
• Moving breathers in bent DNA with realistic parameters
• Distributions of Bubble Lifetimes and Bubble Lengths in DNA
• Quantum Diffusion in Polaron Model of poly(dG)-poly(dC) and poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA polymers
• Multi-peaked localized states of DNLS in one and two dimensions
• Electronic transport and localization in short and long DNA