Stefanie Vogel: Sequence and Energy Dependency of VUV Radiation induced DNA Strand Breaks

We have studied the sequence-specific DNA damage induced by VUV photons in an energy range from 6.5 eV to 9.5 eV on the single-molecule level. By using a novel DNA origami technique, we were able to visualize the photon-induced dissociation of single chemical bonds within complex but well-defined self-assembled DNA nanostructures, deposited on a UV transparent substrate. The method employs atomic force microscopy (AFM) to image and quantify photon-induced bond dissociations within specifically designed oligonucleotide targets that are attached to DNA origami templates [1], [2]. Therefore, we were able to determine quantitatively the sequence-specific DNA strand break yields in dependence of the VUV photon energy.