Denaturation of Heterogeneous DNA

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Abstract
The effect of heterogeneous sequence composition on the denaturation of double-stranded DNA is investigated. The resulting pair-binding energy variation is found to have a negligible effect on the critical properties of the smooth second-order melting transition in the simplest (Peyrard-Bishop) model. However, sequence heterogeneity is dramatically amplified upon adopting a more realistic treatment of the backbone stiffness. The model yields features of “multistep melting” similar to those observed in experiments.