Charge transport in DNA molecules: Cooperative interplay between the disordered base-pair channel and the ordered backbone

Abstract

Charge transport in DNA molecules has raised considerable interest because of its importance in biological processes and potential applications in nanoscale devices. A DNA molecule can be viewed as a quasi-one-dimensional system composed of stacked base pairs (AT , CG) together with backbones of sugar phosphates. Motivated by recent experimental observations on the importance of the backbone integrity, we investigate the interplay between charge transport through the ordered backbone and disordered base stacks with random sequences. By analytical and numerical calculations, we find that the coupling between the backbone and base-pair channels plays an important role in charge transport. The backbone can generate effective hopping constants well beyond the adjacent base pairs, enhancing charge transport through the base-pair channel. The corresponding enhancement of the localization length is nearly independent of the length of the DNA and increases with increasing coupling between backbone and base pair. Our model can explain qualitatively several experimental observations.