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Updated: Mar 9, 2026

Analyzing and Building Nucleic Acid Structures with 3DNA
Published on: April 26, 2013
Hidden symmetries of DNA molecule
Alexander A Tulub1, Vassily E Stefanov2
1Centre for Interdisciplinary Computational and Dynamical Analysis, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK; Saint-Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Emb. 7/9, 199034, Saint-Petersburg, RF, Russia.
Abstract:
Despite the fact that DNA molecule is studied up and down, we know very little about the role of DNA triplets in coding amino acids and stop-codons. The paper aims to fill this gap through attracting spintronic ideas and carrying out QM/MM computations on a full-turn DNA fragment. The computations reveal two hidden symmetries: the spin splitting (the Rashba effect), confined within each triplet, and the quantum "phase" link between the triplet nature (in total, 64 triplets) and the corresponding amino acid and three stop-codons. The hidden symmetries become evident upon binding the magnesium cofactor to DNA triplets in 5'-3' and 3'-5' directions.
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