Electrochemical Properties of Nucleic Acid Components

Abstract

Publisher Summary Nucleic acid bases possess an extraordinarily high ability of self-association at the electrode surface and undergo a 2-D condensation forming a monomolecular layer. With this high condensation ability, nucleic acid bases differ from most of the other purine and pyrimidine derivatives, which currently do not occur in nucleic acids. The two-dimensional first-order phase transitions of molecules adsorbed on homogeneous surfaces often precede via nucleation and growth processes. The kinetics of these phase transitions were investigated by means of current transients using the double potential step technique. Depending on the start and final potentials, different shapes of capacitance or current transients can be detected. Hg-modified graphite electrodes can be successfully used for the study of adsorption, 2-D condensation and formation of ordered adlayers and kinetics of the phase transition between different adlayers of nucleic acids components. It means that with the mercury film electrodes (MFEs) the effect of the surface morphology of the underlying graphite substrates on the adsorption and kinetics of the 2-D condensation of the nucleic acid components in the same potential windows as with a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE) can be investigated.