Abstract
THEORETICAL profiles of the thermal denaturation of random sequence DNA that were calculated by Frank-Kamenetskii and Vologodskii1 displayed a number of narrow subtransitions. In several ways these subtransitions resembled the thermalities observed experimentally in derivative denaturation profiles2–7. Lyubchenko et al.8 extended their theoretical work to include the known sequence of ΦX174 DNA and claim that not only the shape of prominent subtransitions, but also the number and denaturation temperatures are essentially the same for both calculated and observed denaturation profiles. We suggest that the agreement between current theory and experiment is not as satisfactory as has been implied, and that at least one critical parameter has been neglected in the theory and ignored in the discussions of Lyubchenko et al.8.
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VIZARD, D., WHITE, R. & ANSEVIN, A. Comparison of theory to experiment for DNA thermal denaturation. Nature 275, 250–251 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/275250a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/275250a0
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