Physical properties of nucleic acids

Several of the physical properties of nucleic acids have already been mentioned in the discussion of nucleic acid structure. The following properties play important roles in the isolation, detection, and characterization of nucleic acids. 

The Schrbdinger equation can only be solved approximately, even for the individual building blocks of a DNA or RNA molecule -- the bases, sugars and phosphates. Early efforts necessarily employed semi-empirical methods or minimal ab initio basis sets due to computational limitations. Pioneering work on the application of quantum mechanics for elucidating the chemical and physical properties of nucleic acids was carried out by the Pullmans (73). These early studies laid out most of the basic issues which still concern researchers, including 1) to quantitatively... 

After the discovery of two-dimensional condensation of nucleic acid bases a number of laboratories started to study this remarkable physical property of nucleic acid components [20-32] and of some other organic compounds [33-36]. 

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