Energy migration in DNA evaluated by the sensitized fluorescence of an intercalation dye

An equation is obtained to calculated the efficiency of energy migration along a biopolymer with transfer of excitation to a fluorescence dye using excitation and absorption spectra. With the aid of bromoethydium intercalating into DNA-phage it is shown that in a solution at room temperature energy is transferred to it only from one or two neighboring nucleotides. The low efficiency of energy migration in relation to DNA under these conditions is explained by the low probability of each event of “cold” and “hot” migration. Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, 142292, Moscow Region, Russia. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 65, No. 5, pp. 794–798, September–October, 1998.