Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 6: Posters: DNA and DNA Enzymes

BP 6.2: Poster

Monday, March 22, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Information transfer and DNA microarrays — •Christian Trapp and Albrecht Ott — Biologische Experimentalphysik, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken

DNA microarrays take advantage of the molecular recognition of DNA hybridization. They consist of surface bound probe ssDNA, which will selectively bind to complementary target strands in solution. They are widely employed in biotechnological applications such as genome expression profiling in order to assess complex mixtures of DNA. In spite of their importance DNA hybridization on microarrays remains poorly understood. We have shown that the binding to DNA microarrays can be modeled well in simple cases, where the length of probe and targets match. Here we investigate the binding of longer targets to microarrays, which may hybridize to the probes forming loops. We systematically vary loop position and loop size and check, if the result can be reproduced with simple theoretical models at thermal equilibrium. We discuss the influence of loops in terms of competitive binding. The ultimate goal is to explore the physical limits of information that can be conveyed through complex mixtures of DNA.