Abstract
X-ray diffraction of alkali-metal salts of DNA in the solid state has shown that the DNA molecule can exist in several well-defined conformations (Wilkins, 1963; Hamilton, 1968). Originally one thought that the highly crystalline A form of the Na salt of DNA was stable only at low humidities; at high humidities it transformed into the B form (Franklin and Gosling, 1953). It is now clear that excess salt in the fiber is necessary besides higher humidity for the A → B transition (Cooper and Hamilton, 1966). The A-form is an 11-fold double helix with pitch 28.15 Å (Fuller et al., 1965). Double-helical RNA has a conformation similar to the A form of DNA. Unlike DNA, double-helical RNA retains the A conformation at high humidities. Synthetic polyribonucleotides—polyadenylic acid (poly A), polyuridylic acid (poly U), polyinosinic acid (poly I), polycytidylic acid (poly C), and polyguanylic acid (poly G)—can form fully ordered, two-stranded complementary helices very like those of native RNA’s. These two-stranded complexes consist of an indeterminate number of complementary chains, so arranged that the numbers of complementary residues in each chain of the helix are equivalent, that is, there is virtually complete base-pairing.
Work at Brookhaven National Laboratory was supported by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
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Hamilton, L.D. (1971). Immunogenic Polynucleotides. In: Beers, R.F., Braun, W. (eds) Biological Effects of Polynucleotides. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85772-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85772-0_9
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