Abstract
Double-stranded DNA molecules in which purine and pyrimidine nucleotide residues alternate along each chain can assume a novel, right-handed, 8-fold helical form with an axial rise per residue of 3.03 Å. The furanose rings have the standard C3-exo conformation. The bases are positioned unusually with respect to the helix axis even though they connect the two antiparallel chains through purinepyrimidine hydrogen bonds of the Watson & Crick (1953) type. The molecules assume an unprecedentedly dense packing in which each has four nearest neighbors with center-to-center distances of only 17 Å. The molecular geometry also supports assignment of a structural rather than transcriptional role to satellite DNA in biological systems.
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