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Q2. It is important to evaluate the length of a polymer for many applications su

ID: 37148 • Letter: Q

Question

Q2.      It is important to evaluate the length of a polymer for many applications such as effective polymer separation and molecular design. If a polymer is in the extended form, please use the following worksheet to roughly estimate (no need to be accurate) the distance between two adjacent bases in a single-stranded DNA, PNA, and the distance between two adjacent residues (side chains) in a polypeptide. Please use nanometer (nm) as the unit. You can find the various bond lengths and bond angles from any sources. But you can also use bond data from these sources: 1) http://prowl.rockefeller.edu/aainfo/bond.htm; http://prowl.rockefeller.edu/aainfo/contents.htm; and www.notahelix.com/manuscripts/protamine_dna_structure.pdf for the paper in Journal of theoretical Biology 241 (2006) 533-540.

From references, what is the average length of various bonding? _____.

From references, what is the average angle between adjacent bonds? ____.

DNA: How many bonds are there between neighboring nucleotides?____. What is the length between neighboring nucleotides? _______.

PNA: How many bonds are there between neighboring nucleotides?____. What is the length between neighboring nucleotides? _______.

Peptide: How many bonds are there between neighboring amino acids?____. What is the length between neighboring amino acids? _______.

Please compare the similarity of unit length between DNA, PNA and peptide. _____.

Explanation / Answer

Based on the given data,

The average length of various bonding is 129 picometers (pm)

The average angle between adjacent bonds is 180°

The number of bonds is there between neighboring nucleotides of DNA: A and T have double bonds and G and C have triple bonds.

The length between neighboring nucleotides of DNA 3.4 Å

The number of bonds is there between neighboring nucleotides of PNA A and T have double bonds and G and C have triple bonds.

The length between neighboring nucleotides of PNA is also similar to 3.4 Å

The number of bonds is there between neighboring amino acids in a peptide is (one or some say partial double bond).

The length between neighboring amino acids in a peptide is 5.4 Å

The similarity of unit length between DNA, PNA and peptide is: The DNA and PNA have almost similar unit length, but the unit length of peptide differs from both DNA and PNA.