Can Nucleotides Spontaneously Form DNA in Aqueous Solution?

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Loren Booda
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Given high and approximately equal concentrations of nucleotides Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine and Thymine in aqueous solution, how readily could a simple DNA molecule form there?
 

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You'd need the backbone sugars, too.

- Warren
 
To be precise, it's a sugar-phosphate backbone (alternating), where every sugar has a nucleotide base attached.
 
Alright, make the solution a balance of appropriate sugars, phosphates and nucleotides.
 
I don't think this would auto-assemble into anything you would recognize as DNA. Nirenberg's famous auto-assembly of poly-uracyl RNA used a starter "sap", the crushed cytoplasm from a bacterium, along with the test tube of uracyl. See http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/nirenberg/HS4_polyU.htm
 
selfAdjoint,

In my work (for a mental health line), I refer people to NIH quite often. Thanks for the link to that wonderful story, of which I was unaware until now.