Salt Induced Structural Collapse, Swelling, and Signature of Aggregation of Two ssDNA Strands: Insights from...

Molecular dynamics simulations elucidate the structural collapse shown by two ssDNAs of the same base sequence in the presence of either Na⁺ or Mg²⁺, starting from in vivo ionic concentration to higher concentrations. Initially, an increase in ion concentration facilitates the structural distortion of individual ssDNA and helps to bring them close, and for this, Mg²⁺ is better than Na⁺. However, further addition of ions leads to structural reswelling of the DNA strands and inhibits their proximity. The structural changes are found to be guided by the strong interaction of the cations with the phosphinyl oxygen (pn_O). Additionally, a significant difference has been noticed in the interaction of the cations with phosphoester oxygen (pe_O) depending on the nature of the ion. The sequential and nonsequential base-pair stacking is one of the major factors in the structural collapse of individual ssDNA. Overall, the present investigation highlights some of the important aspects of aggregation of two ssDNA with the same base sequence at varying cationic concentration.