ECE201 Biophysics Homework 1

Due: 11:59pm Oct. 22, 2020

(1) Give an example of biomolecular compounds involving polyvalent or transition metal ions that
form coordinate bonds due to the ligand field. Draw the molecular structure of the complexes
and explain the physiological significance and functions of the compounds.

(2) (a) For a double-strand DNA (dsDNA) molecule with 100 base pairs, find the surface charge
density in the unit of (Coulomb/m2) assuming that the dsDNA has a cross section of 2nm in
diameter.
(b) For a single-strand DNA (ssDNA) molecule with 100 nucleotides, calculate the line
density of charge in the unit of (Coulomb/m).
(c) Assuming two double-strand DNA molecule of length “L” are in parallel and separated by
a distance “R”, find the expression of the repelling force as a function of the separation “R”
and DNA length “L”. For simplicity, you can assume the separation R>>d where “d” is the
diameter of the double strand DNA.
(d) Calculate the repelling force in Newtons if the two DNAs (10 um long each) are
separated by 20nm in water with dielectric constant of 78.

(3) (a) For a double strand DNA (dsDNA) with 50% A-T and 50% G-C base pairs, estimate the
binding energy for a DNA segment of 20 base pairs. List the parameters you find from
literatures or other sources you use to make your calculation. (b) From the calculation of the
binding energy, you may conclude that the dsDNA with 20 base pairs will be very stable
against thermal energy. However, the reality is that a dsDNA can be denatured into 2 single
strand DNAs at relatively low temperature (which we call the DNA “melting point”). Explain
why.

(4) Design your experiment to measure (a) the quantum efficiency of photosynthesis for plant
and (b) the energy conversion efficiency. Also find the theoretically highest possible energy
efficiency of photosynthesis for red photons at 630nm wavelength and blue photons at 480nm
wavelength.

Here the photosynthesis process can be simply written as

𝑛ℎ𝜈 + 6𝐻! 𝑂 + 6 𝐶𝑂! → 1 𝐶" 𝐻#! 𝑂" (𝐺𝑙𝑢𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑒) + 6 𝑂!

In other words, it takes “n photons” at certain wavelength (or frequency) to produce 1 Glucose
#
molecule. The quantum efficiency (QE) is defined as 𝑥100%.
$

For energy efficiency, the reverse of the above process can be written as

1 𝐶" 𝐻#! 𝑂" (𝐺𝑙𝑢𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑒) + 6 𝑂! → 6𝐻! 𝑂 + 6 𝐶𝑂! + ∆𝐻

∆&
∆𝐻 is the enthalpy for the reaction. The energy efficiency is defined as $'( 𝑥100%