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Ribosomes are negatively charged and thus electrostaticaly repelled from DNA. However, I could not find a good reference that would allow me to estimate the magnitude of negative charge on a ribosome. Anyone could help with that?

This reference suggests it to be on the order of tens of e- or more.

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    $\begingroup$ @tyersome — Whoa! It's a fair question in itself if you look at the paper, even though it is not of interest to me, and the concern with DNA seems strange. The pH of the intracellular mileu can be assumed so that's not particularly important. In fact I am quite surprised that ribosomes are negatively charged, rather than neutral, as the negative charge of the RNA is balanced to a large extent by magnesium ions — you can't study ribosomes (as I used to do) without say 5mM magnesium. In all the ribosome conferences I attended last century I never remember the topic coming up. $\endgroup$ – David Jan 22 at 18:31

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