Publication Details

Response to comment on remeasuring the double helix

Matthew-Fenn RS, Das R, Fenn TD, Schneiders M, Harbury PA. Science. 2009; 325 (5940): 538-540

We measured the mean and variance of end-to-end length in short DNA fragments in solution and reported evidence of DNA stretching that is cooperative over more than two turns of the double helix. Becker and Everaers suggest that the structural fluctuations we observed arise from bending motions of the DNA, rather than stretching. We present three experimental tests of this bending-based explanation.