Conductivity of natural and modified DNA measured by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. The effect of sequence, charge and stacking
Irena Kratochvílová1*, Karel Král1, Martin Bunček2, Alena Víšková2, Stanislav Nešpůrek3, Anna Kochalska3, Tatiana Todorciuc3, Martin Weiter4, Bohdan Schneider5
1Institute of Physics, ASCR, v.v.i., Na Slovance 2, CZ-182 21 Prague, Czech Republic; email: krat@fzu.cz
2GENERI BIOTECH s.r.o., Machkova 587, CZ-500 11 Hradec Kralové, Czech Republic; email: martin.buncek@generi-biotech.com
3Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry ASCR, v.v.i., Heyrovského nám. 2, CZ-162 06 Prague 6, Czech Republic; email: nespurek@imc.cas.cz
4Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Purkyňova 118, CZ-612 00 Brno, Czech Republic; email: weiter@fch.vutbr.cz
5Institute of Biotechnology AS CR, v.v.i., Vídeňská 1083, CZ-142 20 Prague, Czech Republic; email: bohdan@img.cas.cz
The conductivity of DNA covalently bonded
to a gold surface was studied by means of the STM technique. Various single-
and double-stranded 32-nucleotide-long DNA sequences were measured under
ambient conditions so as to provide a better understanding of the complex
process of charge-carrier transport in natural as well as chemically modified
DNA molecules. The investigations focused on the role of several features of
DNA structure, namely the role of the negative charge at the backbone phosphate
group and the related complex effects of counterions, and of the stacking
interactions between the bases in Watson-Crick and other types of base pairs.
The measurements have indicated that the best
conductor is DNA in its biologically most relevant double-stranded form with
Watson-Crick base pairs and charged phosphates equilibrated with counterions
and water. All the studied modifications, including DNA with non-Watson-Crick
base pairs, the abasic form, and especially the form with phosphate charges
eliminated by chemical modifications, lower the conductivity of natural DNA.
Full paper submitted for publication