Journal
BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 93, Issue 7, Pages 2400-2409Publisher
BIOPHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1529/biophysj.107.106112
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Stretching experiments with long double-stranded DNA molecules in physiological ambient revealed a force-induced transition at a force of 65 pN. During this transition between B-DNA and highly overstretched S-DNA the DNA lengthens by a factor of 1.7 of its B-form contour length. Here, we report the occurrence of this so-called B-S transition in short duplexes consisting of 30 basepairs. We employed atomic-force-microscope-based single molecule force spectroscopy to explore the unbinding mechanism of two short duplexes containing 30 or 20 basepairs by pulling at the opposite 59 termini. For a 30-basepair-long DNA duplex the B-S transition is expected to cause a length increase of 6.3 nm and should therefore be detectable. Indeed 30% of the measured force-extension curves exhibit a region of constant force ( plateau) at 65 pN, which corresponds to the B-S transition. The observed plateaus show a length between 3 and 7 nm. This plateau length distribution indicates that the dissociation of a 30-basepair duplex mainly occurs during the B-S transition. In contrast, the measured force-extension curves for a 20-basepair DNA duplex exhibited rupture forces below 65 pN and did not show any evidence of a B-S transition.
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