Talk:Z-DNA

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An image of Z-DNA would be nice here, perhaps even a picture comparing all three.

  • Done. I created these images with a fine piece of software in Linux. Feel free to make comments. Thorwald 05:55, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed.

Will some expert kindly provide a source for the sentence quoted below, so that I can reach my goal of paring down the Citation Needed references on the following page? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements&from=Z

While no definitive biological significance of Z-DNA has been found, it is commonly believed to provide torsional strain relief while DNA transcription occurs.[citation needed]

Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 06:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

  • A PubMed search for almost any paper published by Alexander Rich or P. Shing Ho should provide you with all the references you need. Dr. Rich "discovered" Z-DNA (in 1979) and is arguably the leading expert on it. He continues to publish to this day. Dr. Ho was Rich's postdoc and is now a professor (and chair) of biochemistry and biophysics. He also actively publishes on DNA to this day.--Thorwald 18:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table

Other users tried to use your table with the information of the different DNA-Isoforms in the German Wikipedia but I noticed that there were quite big differences to the values that Voet et al: Fundamentals of Biochemistry (2006) gives. So it would be nice to know where you have the data from before we quote them. I did not find any specific citations. greetings --hroest 14:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That table has been hanging around on the article for aaages... i have no idea who the original author for it was. While it would be nice to find the original source i would say it would be worthwhile to update the table with a reliable current reference anyway. - Zephyris Talk 15:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X-ray diffraction vs crystallography

The following statement in History is a little confusing... "Z-DNA was the first crystal structure of a DNA molecule to be solved (see: x-ray crystallography). It was solved by Alexander Rich and co-workers in 1979 at MIT.[1] "

I've always believed (possibly erroneously) that X-ray crystallography was a more general term. If this is the case, then wouldn't Watson and Crick's analysis of Franklin's X-ray diffraction of a DNA crystal in the 50's be "the first crystal structure of a DNA molecule to be solved"? PS I'm not trying to be smart here, I just want clarification. PRH969 14:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Wasn't the difference that Franklin's structure was from fiber diffraction, whereas, Rich's structure was from a true crystal? Also, the technique of x-ray crystallography produces much higher resolution than the technique of fiber diffraction. I believe that before 1979 all DNA structures had been determined using fiber diffraction; Rich, with Z-DNA, was the first to use x-ray crystallography to determine his structure. I am interested in getting this right and, if need be, clarifying the above sentence. --Thorwald 22:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)