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Nucleic Acids Research, 2003, Vol. 31, No. 3 1075-1085
© 2003 Oxford University Press

Biopolymer Chain Elasticity: a novel concept and a least deformation energy principle predicts backbone and overall folding of DNA TTT hairpins in agreement with NMR distances

Christophe Pakleza and Jean A. H. Cognet*

Laboratoire de Physico-chimie Biomoléculaire et Cellulaire, UMR 7033 CNRS, T22–12, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +33 1 44 27 27 50; Fax: +33 1 44 27 75 60; Email: cognet{at}ccr.jussieu.fr

A new molecular modelling methodology is presented and shown to apply to all published solution structures of DNA hairpins with TTT in the loop. It is based on the theory of elasticity of thin rods and on the assumption that single-stranded B-DNA behaves as a continuous, unshearable, unstretchable and flexible thin rod. It requires four construction steps: (i) computation of the tri-dimensional trajectory of the elastic line, (ii) global deformation of single-stranded helical DNA onto the elastic line, (iii) optimisation of the nucleoside rotations about the elastic line, (iv) energy minimisation to restore backbone bond lengths and bond angles. This theoretical approach called ‘Biopolymer Chain Elasticity’ (BCE) is capable of reproducing the tri-dimensional course of the sugar–phosphate chain and, using NMR-derived distances, of reproducing models close to published solution structures. This is shown by computing three different types of distance criteria. The natural description provided by the elastic line and by the new parameter, {Omega}, which corresponds to the rotation angles of nucleosides about the elastic line, offers a considerable simplification of molecular modelling of hairpin loops. They can be varied independently from each other, since the global shape of the hairpin loop is preserved in all cases.


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 Nucleic Acids ResHome page
G. P. H. Santini, C. Pakleza, and J. A. H. Cognet
DNA tri- and tetra-loops and RNA tetra-loops hairpins fold as elastic biopolymer chains in agreement with PDB coordinates
Nucleic Acids Res., February 1, 2003; 31(3): 1086 - 1096.
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