Question
What is melting temperature (Tm) of DNA? A DNA molecule with more number of GC base pairs than AT base pairs has higher Tm than the one with lesser number of GC base pairs than AT base pairs. Explain why?
Solution
The temperature at which two strands of DNA separates completely is known as its melting temperature. It is specific for each specific sequence.
A DNA molecule with more number of GC base pairs than AT base pair has higher melting temperature because each GC pair contains three hydrogen bonds, while each AT base pair contains two hydrogen bonds.Therefore, more number of hydrogen bonds are present in DNA molecule with more GC pairs than AT pair.
