Dielectric effects in biopolymers: The theory of ionic saturation revisited

Abstract

Abstract Electrostatic effects are believed to determine the molecular structure and function of macromolecules in many ways. In metallo‐based enzymes and in metal–macromolecule interactions in solution, these effects may predominate. In order to tackle metal ion–nucleic acid interactions theoretically, we propose a modification of Debye's distance‐dependent dielectric function first proposed more than 50 years ago. This function more closely approximates physical reality at small interatomic separations. Our theory yields a dielectric function that gives reasonable agreement with experimental data in preliminary calculations.