Dielectric effects in biopolymers: The theory of ionic saturation revisited

✍ Scribed by B. E. Hingerty; R. H. Ritchie; T. L. Ferrell; J. E. Turner

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 543 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3525
• DOI: 10.1002/bip.360240302

✦ Synopsis

Electrostatic effects are believed to determine the molecular structure and function of macromolecules in many ways. In metallo-based enzymes and in metal-macromolecule interactions in solution, these effects may predominate. In order to tackle metal ion-nucleic acid interactions theoretically, we propose a modification of Debye's distance-dependent dielectric function first proposed more than 50 years ago. This function more closely approximates physical reality a t small interatomic separations. Our theory yields a dielectric function that gives reasonable agreement with experimental data in preliminary calculations.