Molecular Conductance of Nicked Nucleic Acid Duplexes

This work investigates how the conductance of a nucleic acid duplex with a “nick” in its backbone compares with that of a duplex with a fully covalent backbone. Statistical analyses of the single-molecule conductance properties reveal that molecular junctions with a nicked duplex have an average conductance close to that found for non-nicked structures but exhibit greater variability in the molecular conductance. This effect is shown for both DNA homoduplexes and DNA/PNA heteroduplexes, with the heteroduplexes showing a greater average molecular conductance and a smaller degree of variability. The average molecular conductance of the heteroduplexes is also shown to be affected by their PNA content; the conductance of duplexes increases as the ratio of PNA to DNA increases. These observations suggest that the charge-transfer properties of nucleic acid-based assemblies can support complex functions

Goodness-of-fit measures.

<p>Summary of posterior distributions of Goodness-of-fit measures (5, 50 and 95% quantiles) for the four alternative dispersal scenarios, as well as the percentage of patches for which the model accurately predicts the colonization state. The lower values in bold indicate the best fit.</p