The Double Helix in Retrospect: A Critique of Available Evidence
Sosale Chandrasekhar *
Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This short review commentary deals with the evidence for the DNA double helix and raises the intriguing question: does it exist to any significant extent in the solution phase? Well past the sixtieth year of its discovery via X-ray diffraction, the DNA double helix has now acquired the status of a sacred truth, with a large area of modern science revolving around it. This paper presents the pros and cons of the double helix from a physico-chemical perspective, although with critical inputs from chemical biology as appropriate.
Keywords: DNA melting, duplex, Gibbs free energy, helicase, RNA, single strand