DNA-surfactant interactions: a procedure for determination group contributions.

A procedure, based on the measurement of pyren-1-carboxyaldehyde fluorescence, has been used to obtain the free energy corresponding to the interaction of several surfactants of alkyltrimethylammonium-type RN(CH3)3+ and DNA. These free energies depend linearly on the number of carbon atoms in the tail of the surfactant. In this way, it was possible to determine the -CH2-/DNA interaction free energy as well as the free energy of interaction of DNA and the head group of the surfactants. According to the values of these free energies, the surfactant/DNA interaction is mainly electrostatic, for the surfactants used in this work. However, for long enough tails the free energy corresponding to the hydrophobic interaction can reach the same value as the electrostatic one. The procedure used in this work could be extended to the measurement of other group/DNA interactions.