A comparison of measured and calculated single- and double-stranded oligodeoxynucleotide extinction coefficients.

The hyperchromicity resulting from exhaustive hydrolysis of several single-stranded and double-stranded oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) with snake venom phosphodiesterase or snake venom phosphodiesterase/DNase I was used to measure the ODN's extinction coefficient at 260 nm. These extinction coefficients were compared with those obtained using nonempirical approximations. For the oligodeoxynucleotides investigated, the nonempirical approximations yielded extinction coefficients within 20% of the measured values.