What is the magnitude of the electrostatic force binding a strand of DNA together?
I’m not joking here… this seriously is puzzling me.
Do you need more work to do? I can find something for you to do…
I don’t know if this is exactly what you’re looking for, but a text I have says that ultraviolet radiation more energetic than 300nm is likely to destroy the bonds of DNA, but less energetic UV radiation is not. That’s about 4 electron-volts of energy.
Well, I don’t have any hard numbers and don’t feel like looking them up, but DNA strands are held together by hydrogen bonds between matching bases. A-T pairs have two hydrogen bonds, and C-G pairs have three. So if you want a number for a specific strand, you’d need to know the base composition, because it varies. It’s a commonly used fact that strands with lots of C-G pairs are harder to separate than strands with lots of A-T pairs.
DNA from various sources also have specific “melting” temperatures or T[sub]m[/sub]. In this context, the melting point is the temperature at which the two strands separate. DNA that has a lot of G’s and C’s have relatively high T[sub]m[/sub]'s, for the reasons Smeghead mentioned. T[sub]m[/sub] is important for PCR, where DNA needs to be split in order for it to be replicated.
I don’t have actual values of T[sub]m[/sub] on hand, however.