Electrical conduction in macroscopically oriented deoxyribonucleic and hyaluronic acid samples

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2005 Apr;71(4 Pt 1):041901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.71.041901. Epub 2005 Apr 4.

Abstract

Measurements of the quasistatic and frequency dependent electrical conductivity below 1 MHz were carried out on wet-spun, macroscopically oriented, calf thymus deoxyribonucleic (DNA) and umbilical cord hyaluronic acid (HA) bulk samples. The frequency dependence of the electrical conductivity in the frequency range of approximately 10(-3) - 10(6) Hz of both materials is surprisingly rather similar. Temperature dependence of the quasistatic electrical conductivity above the low temperature saturation plateau can be well described by the activated Arrhenius law with the activation energy of approximately 0.8 eV for both DNA and HA. We discuss the meaning of these findings for the possible conduction mechanism in these particular charged polyelectrolytes.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Complex Mixtures / analysis*
  • DNA / analysis*
  • DNA / chemistry*
  • Electric Conductivity
  • Electrochemistry / methods*
  • Hyaluronic Acid / analysis*
  • Hyaluronic Acid / chemistry*
  • Molecular Conformation
  • Nucleic Acid Conformation
  • Static Electricity
  • Temperature

Substances

  • Complex Mixtures
  • Hyaluronic Acid
  • DNA
  • calf thymus DNA