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Environment
Viability Of Arsenate-DNA
December 13, 2010
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 88, Issue 50
ACS 2009 IRS Form 990 Available
The American Chemical Society’s 2009 Form 990 is now available on ACS’s website. To access the information, go to www.acs.org and follow these instructions: Click on “About Us,” then click on “ACS Financial Information.” Go to the heading, “ACS IRS Form 990,” and click on “2009 IRS Form 990.”Please see also the related “Guide to Schedule J” for explanatory information regarding ACS Executive Compensation. If you have any access problems, contact webmaster@acs.org.
Arsenate esters are not sufficiently stable in water for the phosphorus-to-arsenic substitution implied in Felisa Wolfe-Simon’s paper to be functional, nor do the experiments reported in the paper show the substitution in a chemically rigorous manner (C&EN, Dec. 6, page 36).
A rigorous proof of the viability of “arsenate-DNA” would require the chemical synthesis of a (duplex) oligo of this material and a thorough spectroscopic analysis to characterize the structure. The spectroscopic parameters found from such a study could then be used as a reference point to examine the DNA from the arsenate-tolerant extremophile. This has not been done, but if it were attempted, the available literature suggests that the arsenate linkage would spontaneously hydrolyze on first exposure to water.
John D. Sutherland
Cambridge, England
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