Switching Nucleotide Base Pairs by Coherent Light

摘要

We show that phase-coherent optical techniques allow for the detection and automatic repair of mutations in nucleotide pairs. We demonstrate computationally that there is a laser pulse sequence that can detect the occurrence of a mutation caused by a double proton transfer between hydrogen-bonded nucleotide pairs and automatically repair it by converting the mutated nucleotide-pair to the non-mutated one. The specific system chosen for this demonstration is the hydrogen-bonded 2-pyridone-2-hydroxypyridine dimer at typical inter-nucleotide distances, a well-established model for tautomeric acid base pairs.