期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1999
卷号:96
期号:21
页码:11713-11716
DOI:10.1073/pnas.96.21.11713
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The fundamental mechanisms of charge migration in DNA are pertinent for current developments in molecular electronics and electrochemistry-based chip technology. The energetic control of hole (positive ion) multistep hopping transport in DNA proceeds via the guanine, the nucleobase with the lowest oxidation potential. Chemical yield data for the relative reactivity of the guanine cations and of charge trapping by a triple guanine unit in one of the strands quantify the hopping, trapping, and chemical kinetic parameters. The hole-hopping rate for superexchange-mediated interactions via two intervening AT base pairs is estimated to be 109 s-1 at 300 K. We infer that the maximal distance for hole hopping in the duplex with the guanine separated by a single AT base pair is 300 {+/-} 70 A. Although we encounter constraints for hole transport in DNA emerging from the number of the mediating AT base pairs, electron transport is expected to be nearly sequence independent because of the similarity of the reduction potentials of the thymine and of the cytosine.