DNA versus RNA -- which shows higher electronic conduction?

TL;DR

This study compares the charge transport properties of dsRNA and dsDNA, revealing that dsDNA generally conducts better than dsRNA due to structural differences, with conductance varying under different regimes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive multiscale modeling analysis of charge transport in dsRNA and dsDNA, clarifying contradictory previous findings.

Findings

dsDNA conducts better than dsRNA in both coherent and incoherent regimes

Structural differences like twist angle and slide influence conductance

In the coherent limit, dsRNA can have higher conductance for certain morphologies

Abstract

In this study, we compare the charge transport properties of multiple (double stranded) dsRNA sequences with corresponding dsDNA sequences. Recent studies have presented a contradictory picture of relative charge transport efficiencies in A-form DNA:RNA hybrids and dsDNA. Using a multiscale modelling framework, we compute conductance of dsDNA and dsRNA using Landauer formalism in coherent limit and Marcus-Hush theory in the incoherent limit. We find that dsDNA conducts better than dsRNA in both the charge transport regimes. Our analysis shows that the structural differences in the twist angle and slide of dsDNA and dsRNA are the main reasons behind the higher conductance of dsDNA in the incoherent hopping regime. In the coherent limit however, for the same base pair length, the conductance of dsRNA is higher than that of dsDNA for the morphologies where dsRNA has smaller end-to-end length relative to that of dsDNA.