Sequence Sensitivity of Breathing Dynamics in Heteropolymer DNA

Abstract

We study the fluctuation dynamics of localized denaturation bubbles in heteropolymer DNA with a master equation and complementary stochastic simulation based on novel DNA stability data. A significant dependence of opening probability and waiting time between bubble events on the local DNA sequence is revealed and quantified for a biological sequence of the T7 bacteriophage. Quantitative agreement with data from fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is demonstrated.