DNA melting in poor solvent

TL;DR

This study investigates how poor solvent conditions affect DNA melting behavior, revealing a transition from first-order to continuous melting and showing that solvent quality can induce an unbound DNA phase, aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based analysis of DNA melting in poor solvents, highlighting a non-universal transition and solvent-induced unbinding.

Findings

Melting temperature varies non-monotonically with solvent quality.

Transition changes from first-order to continuous as solvent quality worsens.

An unbound DNA phase can be achieved by adjusting solvent conditions.

Abstract

The melting phase diagram of a double-stranded DNA in poor solvent is studied using the pruned and enriched Rosenbluth method on a simple cubic lattice. As the solvent quality is changed from good to poor, there is a non-monotonic change in the melting temperature. First-order melting transition, as in good solvent, gives way to continuous transition and then to further broadened transitions where the order parameter smoothly becomes zero for sufficiently poor solvent. This change in the melting behavior is accompanied by a continuously varying critical exponent along the melting curve, hinting at a non-universal nature of the melting transition. Further, we show that an unbound phase can be achieved just by changing the solvent quality. Importantly, our results conform to the experimental findings qualitatively.