Abstract. The excitations of structural solitons and vibrational solitons exist in the DNA structure. In this paper, we propose that DNA breathing phenomena is the product of cooperation of these two classes of solitons, and DNA breather migrates along the DNA chain with the extension of the soliton-antisoliton bound state range. Furthermore, we prove that β-DNA and A-T (base pair) rich regions in the DNA molecule are DNA breathing origins. Besides, the effect of a nonlinear electric field on B-DNA Z-DNA transitions is explained by the theory of soliton and extra-electron movement. The B-DNA will be transformed into Z-DNA when a nonlinear electric field is introduced into a low-salt DNA solution containing segment poly(dG-dC)_n.

Print publication: Issue 5 (1989)
Received 6 February 1989