The stability of nucleic acids and proteins

To understand melting of proteins and nucleic acids at specific transition temperatures, we need to explore quantitatively the effect of intermolecular interactions on the stability of compact conformations of biopolymers. 

Closer examination of thermal denaturation reveals some of the chemical factors that determine protein and nucleic acid stability. For example, the thermal stability of DNA increases with the number of C-G base pairs in the sequence because each C-G base pair has three hydrogen bonds (1), whereris each T-A base pair has only two (2). More energy is required to unravel a double hehx that has a higher proportion of hydrogen bonding interactions per base pair. 

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