Browsing by Author "Tonchev, O"

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    Small-angle scattering as a tool to study the thermal denaturation of DNA
    (IOP Science, 2014-10-02) Wood, K; Knott, RB; Tonchev, O; Angelov, D; Theodorakopoulos, N; Peyrard, M
    DNA thermal denaturation is the breaking of the base pairs, leading to a splitting of the two strands of the double helix. While it is easy to measure the fraction of open base pairs $(f)$ vs. temperature, determining the fraction $(p)$ of fully open molecules is much harder. Previously, the simultaneous recording of f and p could only be achieved for special sequences. We show that small-angle scattering of X-rays or neutrons allows the measurement of p for any sequence. We illustrate the method with a SAXS investigation of two sequences designed to exhibit different melting profiles and compare the SAXS data with nano-calorimetric measurements of the melting curve. © 2014, EPLA.