Conduction in Nucleic Acid Components

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Scientific paper

IN a recent paper1 DNA was shown to possess a small semiconductivity in the dry state, the specific conductivity following the equation : with Δɛ = 2.42 eV, log10(ϰ0, Ω-1cm-1) = 3.4. It was suggested that the conductivity was associated with the π-electron overlap of the paired bases, adenine-thymine, and guanine-cytosine. In the Crick and Watson double-helix for DNA structure these base pairs are arranged one on top of the other, with an interplane spacing of 3.4 Å, similar to that found in graphite2. A similar result was found for the electrical conductivity of RNA, which may now be related to its high content of double-helix structure3. We have examined the solid-state electrical conductivity of some of the component structures of the nucleic acid, using d.c. with the polycrystalline specimen compressed between nickel electrodes at 80 kg cm-2, in a vacuum of 10-6 mm mercury. The bases adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine and uracil were first examined. These gave very low conductivities, around 10-15 Ω-1cm-1 at 400° K, but sublimation (even in a nitrogen atmosphere) and thermal decomposition precluded the establishment of accurate Δɛ values. The nucleosides had conductivities of 10-11-10-13 Ω-1cm-1 and the nucleotides 10-7-10-12 Ω-1cm-1 at 400° K. The results are listed in Table 1.

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