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Nanorings To Probe Mechanical Stress Of Single-Stranded Dna Mediated By The Dna Duplex, Karen Zagorski, Tommy Stormberg, Mohtadin Hashemi, Anatoly B. Kolomeisky, Yuri L. Lyubchenko

Journal Articles: Pharmaceutical Sciences

The interplay between the mechanical properties of double-stranded and single-stranded DNA is a phenomenon that contributes to various genetic processes in which both types of DNA structures coexist. Highly stiff DNA duplexes can stretch single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) segments between the duplexes in a topologically constrained domain. To evaluate such an effect, we designed short DNA nanorings in which a DNA duplex with 160 bp is connected by a 30 nt single-stranded DNA segment. The stretching effect of the duplex in such a DNA construct can lead to the elongation of ssDNA, and this effect can be measured directly using atomic …