dna degradation

[Karl Voss]

mobio at electriciti.com wrote:
> Does anyone know if there is a defined temperature which will break the 
> phosphor diester bond in the nucleic acid chain?

> Thanks in advance!!

Phosphodiester bonds are quite stable.  You can boil CCC dna solutions and
not create a nick in the backbone.  Even high pH will not destoy the backbone.
Now heating DNA with AP sites (apurinic/apyrimidinic) in a high pH solution
will break the phosphodiester backbone.  

Good luck.

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If it ain't broke it doesn't have enough
features yet

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Karl Voss
Department of Chemistry
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T6G 2G2

karl.voss at ualberta.ca
http://hobbes.chem.ualberta.ca/~karl
phone 403-492-0222
fax   403-492-8231