From: http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=2900

Nobody found this a bit interesting? 0 views lol.

Brilliant article and nice find!! I wonder how the DNA KNOWS when it is stand-like similar to moves towards it? How does it KNOW? Ok= lost in thought now. So, they are referring to this as Telepathic? WOW.

Thank you and take care Jody


PS: I think the views are "updated" in certain time increments it still said 0 views after I posted this

Was on the main page a couple weeks ago. Explains it better Here.

Quite fascinating to say the least.

It could be called Quorum-sensing

Like the Bacterial communication...

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2000...ornberg-96.html

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/quorum/

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/02/7...um-sensing.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...a74c3bf5d2e445c

Wow, interesting read to say the least. What a strange thing lol *thinks.*

Yes, journalists are referring to this as telepathic. Wow.

It is very, very interesting. But just to check, no-one actually thinks it's actual telepathy, do they?

From http://www.livescience.com/health/080124-dna-telepathy.html

Only if you think magnets are telepathic aswell.

Umm...What does magnets have to do with DNA?????????????????????????????????
Very interesting read darkbreed

How certain strands attract each other~

Like North and South on a magnet.

Well they don't really attract eachother, they just repel eachother less than others do.

I read that the bases are chemically attracted to an opposite.

...Along with the corkskrew effect.

This has to be the most ridiculous article i read

You're right, they do.

What they're talking about here is an effect where entire DNA molecules seem to group together, it's not to do with the bases because they're already paired up and locked inside the double helix.

Instead it's caused by the electric charge of the sugar and phosphate groups which together form the outside brace of the double helix. The more similar any two DNA molecules are to eachother the closer they can get to eachother without being repelled. So these ones will tend to be closer together while unsimilar molecules are repelled.

Ohh I see. Thanks for explaining.

See, helps if you actually have a strong knowledge in biology.

So, is it this slight repelling that causes the corkskrew effect. Or, is that caused by something entirely different.

Almost there Raptor...you strayed just a little bit in the end.

I found the original research article and read through it. This is the original title: "DNA Double Helices Recognize Mutual Sequence Homology in a Protein Free Environment" Geoff S. Baldwin,* Nicholas J. Brooks, Rebecca E. Robson, Aaron Wynveen, Arach Goldar, Sergey Leikin,* John M. Seddon,* and Alexei A. Kornyshev* and you can find it on the J. of Physical Chemistry B website.

This is where the article (http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=2900) is well, wrong.
There is a negative charge on the sugar-phosphate backbone of the DNA. It is believed that the negative charge of the sugar-phosphate backbone of the double-stranded DNA will shelter the inner nucleotides from interacting with the surrounding environment. This includes the ability of 2 double-stranded DNA to get close to each other because two negative charges will repel each other, no matter the sequence of nucleotide of the DNA. The experiment is challenging the belief that two double-stranded DNA molecules with identical sequences can come close together and not repel each other because of the nucleotides on the inside.

In order for DNA to get close to one another, it must:
1. Line up the major/minor grooves. DNA isn't a perfectly circular helix. It has a minor groove, (like a tight coil), and a major groove, (loose coil).
2. Over come the repulsive forces of the negative charge on the sugar-phosphate backbone.
3. It cannot have any secondary structures or mismatched base pairs. In other words, it has to be a helical shape and not deformed.

They were able to get the DNA really close together, but what they don't tell you is that the (a.) fragment was small, (b.) in was in an electrolytic solution, and (c.) the DNA sequence can affect the groove pattern of the DNA.
So (a.) a small fragment means there is little repulsion available. There aren't many negative charges to repel very much.
(b.) an electrolytic solution means that there were counter-ions available to bond to the negative charge of the sugar-phosphate backbone. This would further reduce the repulsion of the backbone. This will allow the DNA to overcome the repulsive forces.
(c.) If the groove pattern is affected by the sequence of nucleotides, then it should follow that only another DNA fragment with the same sequences would be able to line up correctly with the first DNA.

A personal criticism of the research paper is the lack of attention to van der Waal forces which would be responsible for bringing together two neutral or oppositely charged molecules together to create a slightly positive charge on one side and a slightly negative charge on the other side, creating polarity. This would explain why like strands came together.

A personal criticism of the article comes in the form of:

Quote: "In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment." This is wrong in that it was in a weak electrolytic solution where strands of DNA with two different 294 nucleotide sequences pooled together instead of mixing with each other. The electrolytic solution can and does interact with the DNA. Other things that interact with the DNA comes from pH, heat, buffer, alcohol precipitation, and other salt solutions (electrolytic). It sounds like the scientist just dumped some DNA into a beaker of water and that's not the case. It should also be noted that the combination of like sequences pulling together on happened 50% of the time.

Quote: "No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The “telepathic” effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists." Individual strands of DNA don't communicate. Its how they orient themselves in 3D space and how often a strand will get close to another strand with the same sequence. It's not a telepathic effect. It is the alignment of the molecules of the DNA based on polarity due to the sum of the individual polar bonds.

Quote: "This recognition effect may help increase the accuracy and efficiency of the homologous recombination of genes, which is a process responsible for DNA repair, evolution, and genetic diversity." No. Just No. Not even close. Recombination of genes is random during Meiosis and Mitosis. Enzymes during Transcription are responsible for DNA repair. Evolution is based on the genetic information passed from one generation to the next. (I really simplified the Evolution description, sorry). Genetic diversity is based on a lot of different things, but not whether two gene sequences will stay close to each other because no cell will produce more than is energetically available or necessary, this includes making one gene at a time. (Please note that I am taking into consideration the incredible amounts of repeat sequences in the human genome, however, it is known that those sequences are often cut out or produce the correct spacing needed to create a functional protein, not DNA.)

BioTechno
B.S. Biology, Option: Biotechnology
CSUN 2005

Yes, with mismatched purines and pyrimidines, the diameter of the DNA molecule changes. It may seem like an insignificant effect, but it causes a whole mess of problems. Dimers also cause similar problems, but are normall fixed by restriction endonuclease.