Point Mutations Effects on Charge Transport Properties of the Tumor-Suppressor Gene p53

Shih, Chi-Tin; Roche, Stephan; Römer, Rudolf A.

Point Mutations Effects on Charge Transport Properties of the Tumor-Suppressor Gene p53

Authors

Shih, Chi-Tin

Roche, Stephan

Römer, Rudolf A.

Description

We report on a theoretical study of point mutations effects on charge transfer properties in the DNA sequence of the tumor-suppressor p53 gene. On the basis of effective single-strand or double-strand tight-binding models which simulate hole propagation along the DNA, a statistical analysis of charge transmission modulations associated with all possible point mutations is performed. We find that in contrast to non-cancerous mutations, mutation hotspots tend to result in significantly weaker {\em changes of transmission properties}. This suggests that charge transport could play a significant role for DNA-repairing deficiency yielding carcinogenesis.
4.1 PR style pages with 5 figures included