Degtyar M. Divalent metal ions interaction with noncanonical nucleic acid structures

The object is the conformational transitions in aqueous homopolynucleotides solutions. The aim is to establish main regularities of temperature and divalent metal ions content influence on the conformational equilibrium in solutions of nucleic acids with the different level of the structural organization. Methods - differential UV spectroscopy, thermal denaturation. Theoretical and practical results, novelty: for the first time temperature and concentrational ranges of the separate conformations stability states were obtained. It has been shown that ligand binding theory adequately describes homopolinucliotides conformational transitions. For the first time binding constants of Ni2+ interacting with two- and three stranded helixes polyA(polyU, polyA(2polyU and Cu2+ ions interacting with four stranded polyI were obtained. It has been shown that conformational equilibrium diagrams form is defined by values of binding constants of divalent metal ions interacting with different polynucliotides conformations. The field is the molecular biophysics.