Hybridization and Renaturation Kinetics of Nucleic Acids

When two DNA or RNA molecules contain sequences of nucleotides that are complementary to one another, they are able to come together to form a double helix with all of the bases paired. If both strands are DNA, the process is usually called renaturation or reassociation; if one strand is DNA and the other is RNA, the process is called hybridization. These essentially identical processes form the experimental basis for determining relatedness of nucleic acids. Renaturation and hybridization techniques have been used in thousands of papers over the past 15 years. This review is restricted to studies involving the kinetics of the renaturation and hybridization reactions. The pioneering work of Ross & Sturtevant ( 1, 2) on the kinetics of formation of helices with RNA homo polymers, Marmur & Doty (3) on the kinetics of re­ naturation of DNA [for a review, see (4)J, and Nygaard & Hall (5) on the kinetics of DNA· RNA hybridization led to the development by Britten & Kohne (6) and Wetmur & Davidson (7) of systematic frameworks for the interpretation of experi­ mental results. The literature of renaturation and hybridization kinetics in this period has been included as a subject in several reviews (8-1 1). Our emphasis is on the continued development of an integrated and quantitative understanding of the many facets of the kinetics of renaturation and hybridization of nucleic acids. A recent methods paper by Britten, Graham & Neufeld ( 12) provides complemen­ tary information for practitioners in this area of research.