Vacuum-ultraviolet circular dichroism reveals DNA duplex formation between short strands of adenine and thymine

Absorbance spectroscopy is used extensively to tell when two DNA single strands come together and form a double strand. Here we show that circular dichroism in the vacuum ultraviolet region provides an even stronger indication for duplex formation in the case of short strands of adenine and thymine (4 to 16 bases in each strand). Indeed, our results show that a strong positive CD band appears at 179 nm when double strands are formed. Melting experiments were done in aqueous solution with and without added Na(+) counter ions. With additional salt present a huge increase in the 179 nm CD band was observed when lowering the temperature. A 179 nm CD marker band for duplex formation can be used to measure the kinetics for the association of two single strands. Such experiments rely on large changes at one particular wavelength since it is too time-consuming to record a full-wavelength spectrum.