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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

DNA Nanotubes as a Versatile Tool to Study Semiflexible Polymers
Published on: October 25, 2017
Racemic single-walled carbon nanotubes exhibit circular dichroism when wrapped with DNA
Gordana Dukovic1, Milan Balaz, Peter Doak
1Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA. gd2012@columbia.edu
Abstract:
We have found that racemic mixtures of chiral single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) wrapped with d(GT)20 DNA oligomer exhibit circular dichroism (CD). We attribute the CD signal to induced CD arising from the coupling of transition moments of the SWNTs and the DNA. Although the nanotube mixture appears to contain both enantiomers in equal amounts, DNA-SWNT transition moment interaction is more constructive for one SWNT enantiomer over the other, resulting in an overall CD signal.
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