how to work out curvature of DNA--part two???

[G Gallagher]

hello again !!!

sorry for the loose terminology in my previous post and thanks to those
who emailed me so quickly.

In a paper (Immunogenetics, vol.39, 150-154, 1994), D'Alfonso and Richiardi
describe the effect of a single base substitution in a putative Y-box, in the
human TNF promoter. One of the things they note is that the change of G/A
results in a *subtle* change in (quote) "..variation at position -238 slightly
affects DNA curvature is also shown by the images obtained by a computer program
that predicts DNA superhelical conformation from nucleotide sequence.."

The reference they give for this is De Santis et al, Biophys Chem., vol32
305-317, 1988.

I can't get hold of this programme and anyway, thought there might be a more
up-to-date one.

Secondly, I am aware of papers (again from the late 80's) that describe
"promoter" function of dinucleotide repeats (eg Hamada et al, Mol Cell Biol,
vol?? december 1984, pp2610 - 2621) which seems to be ascribed to the possible 
change to z-DNA that such repeats might try to achieve.

I should say that I am a cellular immunologist and so am not up to date with
research in either of these areas, which is sort of why I asked the board..

Anyway, like I said, I'm interested in the possible efects of changing the
size of a dinucleotide (CA) repeat and would welcome any thoughts.

Grant