Linear Dichroism as a Tool for Characterizing Strand Separation in DNA

Journal article, 1977

Linear dichroism (LD) in combination with studies of UV absorption and circular dichroism is suggested as a method for characterizing denaturation and reassociation phenomena in DNA. Due to its strong dependence on the chain stiffness, LD sensitively reflects partial strand separations. In reassociated DNA, LD provides an index of the amount of ordered structure while hyperchromicity gives a measure of the amount of base-pairs reformed.