Spectrophotometric study of melting of double stranded Poly[A]·Poly[U] in the aqueous solution

Abstract

Experimentally observed changes in the electronic absorption spectrum of sodium salt of synthetic polyadenyl–polyuridyl acid (Poly[A]·Poly[U]) in the aqueous solution (pH = 7.0, I = 0.15 mol/L) with the change in temperature were explained in terms of co-existence of two different forms of the Poly[A]·Poly[U] strands. Chemometrics analysis of full set of melting curves measured at 120 wavelengths in the UV spectral range has been performed using evolving factor analysis (EFA) and KALS designed for the calculation of equilibrium constants from spectrometry data without a priori set model of the system. Using the Van’t Hoff equation, we have determined thermodynamic constants of the biopolymer transition from the double stranded helix into the random coil conformation (helix–coil transition), they can be further used to quantify the possibility of these structures to be involved in biochemical processes. Molecular model of partially denatured Poly[A]′·Poly[U]′ complex has been biult by means of molecular mechanics.