1
$\begingroup$

I was wondering about what general range for the net charge of DNA in human cells is in Coulombs. I imagine that kind of thing would be hard to measure but could be approximately calculated/estimated. Could you approximate it by taking the average number of base pairs in the human genome and multiplying it by the charge of a phosphate group? Would you have to multiply by two as well because there are two phosphate groups attached to each base pair?

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

1
$\begingroup$

That reasoning seems to work for Harvard's bionumbers database. They use a charge of -2 per base pair, and then estimate the linear charge density as 2e / 0.34 nm, where 0.34 nm is the length of a base pair. There are approximately 3.08 billion base pairs in the human genome, so you could run the same calculation: $2e \cdot 3.08 \cdot 10^9 = 9.86 \cdot 10^{-10} C$.

$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .