Effect of cytosine hydroxymethylation on DNA charge transport

DNA hydroxymethylation plays a very important role in some biological processes, such as DNA methylation process. In addition, its presence can also cause some diseases. In this paper, the electrical properties of cytosine hydroxymethylated (Chm) DNA sequences are studied. The density functional theory (DFT) and Landauer–Büttiker framework are used to study the decoherence conductance and transmission of the Chm strands in different configurations, which provides a theoretical basis for the detection of Chm. The results show that the conductance of the hydroxymethylated DNA strand is smaller than that of the native and methylated strands. The length dependence of the Chm strands is also studied. With the length increasing, the conductance becomes larger. This study shows that DNA methylation can be detected electrically.