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In biochemistry, denaturation is a process in which proteins or nucleic acids lose folded structure present in their native state due to various factors, including application of some external stress or compound, such as a strong acid or base, a concentrated inorganic salt, an organic solvent (e.g., alcohol or chloroform), agitation and radiation, or heat. [3]
Single-stranded DNA or RNA tends to fold up into molecules with complex shapes and migrate through the gel in a complicated manner based on their tertiary structure. Therefore, agents that disrupt the hydrogen bonds, such as sodium hydroxide or formamide, are used to denature the nucleic acids and cause them to behave as long rods again. [26]
The process of DNA denaturation can be used to analyze some aspects of DNA. Because cytosine / guanine base-pairing is generally stronger than adenine / thymine base-pairing, the amount of cytosine and guanine in a genome is called its GC-content and can be estimated by measuring the temperature at which the genomic DNA melts. [2]
Denaturation: If alkaline transfer methods are used, the DNA gel is placed into an alkaline solution (typically containing sodium hydroxide) to denature the double-stranded DNA. The denaturation in an alkaline environment may improve binding of the negatively charged thymine residues of DNA to a positively charged amino groups of membrane ...
Denaturation can "cook" meat to toughness if it's left to marinate certain types of meat too long. ... These foods typically shouldn't marinate for more than 30 to 60 minutes. Ceviche, a Peruvian ...
Salt compounds dissociate in aqueous solutions. This property is exploited in the process of salting out. When the salt concentration is increased, some of the water molecules are attracted by the salt ions, which decreases the number of water molecules available to interact with the charged part of the protein. [3]
A chaotropic agent is a molecule in water solution that can disrupt the hydrogen bonding network between water molecules (i.e. exerts chaotropic activity).This has an effect on the stability of the native state of other molecules in the solution, mainly macromolecules (proteins, nucleic acids) by weakening the hydrophobic effect.
To precipitate the DNA out of the water, the negatively charged phosphate groups of the DNA backbone are neutralized by the addition of positively charged ions from a salt. But because of the high polarity of water, illustrated by its high dielectric constant of 80.1 (at 20 °C), the positively charged ions are shielded and unable to interact ...