Investigating the thermodynamics of conformational transitions in DNA oligomers

Abstract

I first met Professor Wilhelm when I joined the Board of Directors of the North American Calorimetry Conference (CalCon) in 2009. Since that time, I have had the pleasure of seeing him every year at CalCon. Although I am formally trained in organic chemistry, my research has evolved to nucleic acid biophysics. None the less, I would attend Prof. Wilhelm’s lecture whenever possible at the CalCon meetings. The first lecture I attended focused on fugacity and afterwards, I thought to myself: “I could learn some physical chemistry from this man!” I am honored to contribute my story to this special issue of The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics. The work reviewed below focuses on biophysical approaches by my research group to study conformational transitions in DNA using designed DNA oligomers and monitoring temperature or salt induced transition by optical melting and calorimetric determinations. Further, the influences on DNA sequence context and environmental conditions on these transitions are also discussed.