Compared to DNA in the intracellular environment, “bare” DNA is quite sensitive and vulnerable to direct damage on exposure to hydrophobic PAHs. These persistent lipophilic organic contaminants with high biological affinity are ubiquitous in the environment [14]. Owing to their strong hydrophobic properties, PAHs have greater affinity for such organic substances as compared to other organic contaminants or heavy metals. Therefore, the PAHs in the same environmental background may be capable of partitioning organic substances. Any “bare” germplasm released into the soil or water is directly

exposed to these hazardous materials. The extracellular interaction of DNA with PAHs is completely different from that in an intracellular environment. selleck kinase inhibitor Fig.

1 shows the main pathway by which PAHs affect intracellular DNA. In it, the PAH molecules are first catalyzed into “OH–PAH” by a series of enzymes, and the active “ OH” functional groups in the PAH molecules combine with the bases of DNA by forming chemical “DNA adducts” based on chemical bonds [15]. In contrast, the interaction of PAHs with free DNA in the extracellular environment is based on weak molecular forces. Although changes in the structure, backbone buy Selumetinib composition, and guanine constituents of DNA induced by PAHs which can be inserted into double strands have been observed, and imidazole-like derivatives are produced from the combination of imidazole rings with pyrene [5] and [17], PAHs lack active

functional groups related to the functional sites of DNA, and no enzyme catalysis occurs in the extracellular environment. Therefore, the changes in DNA seen in the extracellular environment cannot about be attributed to the formation of chemical bonds between DNA and PAHs, but are linked to the weak molecular forces between DNA molecules and PAHs. In other words, polar DNA molecules can induce relative displacement between the electron cloud and atomic nucleus of non-polar PAHs, causing the appearance of dipoles with excellent induction forces in PAH molecules. These induction forces of the PAH molecules then attract polar DNA molecules with their innate dipoles [15]. PAHs are inserted into grooves in DNA (Fig. 2A and B) or between bases (Fig. 2C and D) through dispersion force and π–π overlap between PAHs and bases. Free calcium ions enhance the efficiency of DNA transformation into bacterial recipients by forming hydroxyl–calcium phosphate complexes in DNA [6]. The interaction between “bare” DNA and PAH molecules is based on a weak molecular force, which implies that such weak molecular forces are more strongly affected by the chemical bonds of Ca-DNA. Fig. 3 supports this viewpoint. The transformational efficiency of DNA plasmids (pUC19) with no PAHs and Ca2+ is 4.7 (PAHs are exposed to plasmid DNA and did not directly contact with host cell (E. coli DH5a)).