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Updated: May 13, 2026

Analyzing and Building Nucleic Acid Structures with 3DNA
Published on: April 26, 2013
Mean-field interactions between nucleic-acid-base dipoles can drive the formation of a double helix
Yi He1, Maciej Maciejczyk, Stanisław Ołdziej
1Baker Laboratory of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-1301, USA.
Abstract:
A proposed coarse-grained model of nucleic acids demonstrates that average interactions between base dipoles, together with chain connectivity and excluded-volume interactions, are sufficient to form double-helical structures of DNA and RNA molecules. Additionally, local interactions determine helix handedness and direction of strand packing. This result, and earlier research on reduced protein models, suggests that mean-field multipole-multipole interactions are the principal factors responsible for the formation of regular structure of biomolecules.
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