Bubble Dynamics in Double-Stranded DNA

Grégoire Altan-Bonnet, Albert Libchaber, and Oleg Krichevsky

Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 138101 – Published 1 April 2003

Abstract

We report the first measurement of the dynamics of bubble formation in double-stranded DNA. Fluctuations of fluorescence of a synthetic DNA construct, internally tagged with a fluorophore and a quencher, are monitored by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. The relaxation dynamics follow a multistate relaxation kinetics, with a characteristic time scale of $50 μ s$ . A simple model of bubble dynamics based on constant zipping-unzipping rates is proposed to account for our experimental data. The role of different secondary structures stabilizing the open bubble is tested.

Received 11 November 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.138101

Authors & Affiliations

Grégoire Altan-Bonnet¹, Albert Libchaber¹, and Oleg Krichevsky^1,2,*

¹Center for Studies in Physics and Biology, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021
²Department of Physics, Ben–Gurion University, BeerSheva 84105, Israel

^*Corresponding author.

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Issue

Vol. 90, Iss. 13 — 4 April 2003

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