Sequence Dependence of Electronic Transport in DNA

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the sequence of bases in DNA influences its electronic transport properties, revealing insulating behavior and sequence-dependent variations in localization lengths across different DNA types.

Contribution

It introduces a ladder-like tight-binding model to analyze sequence dependence of electronic transport in long DNA chains, highlighting sequence-specific differences.

Findings

DNA exhibits insulating behavior with localization lengths around 25 base pairs.

Significant differences in transport properties are observed between various DNA sequences.

Sequence composition affects electronic localization in DNA.

Abstract

We study electronic transport in long DNA chains using the tight-binding approach for a ladder-like model of DNA. We find insulating behavior with localizaton lengths xi ~ 25 in units of average base-pair seperation. Furthermore, we observe small, but significant differences between lambda-DNA, centromeric DNA, promoter sequences as well as random-ATGC DNA.