PROTONIC QUANTUM CORRELATIONS IN THE H-BOND DYNAMICS OF NUCLEIC-ACIDS- PART II - CORRELATIONS ALONG THE HELICAL AXIS OF PROTEIN-CODING DNAOF LIVING ORGANISMS

Due to their small mass, adjacent protons (or H-atoms) of molecular sy stems may exhibit quantum entranglement (or quantum correlations), eve n at ambient conditions. The considerable thermal disturbance and/or m any-body interactions of condensed matter and the associated decoheren ce effect, however, cause this protonic entanglement to be restricted in space and time. Some aspects of entanglement and decoherence are me ntioned. Extending our previous theoretical work, in the present paper the focus is on the possible existence of entangled protons belonging to the H-bonds of adjacent base pairs of B-type DNA. Based on the 'wo rking hypothesis' that this effect does really exist, the most probabl e 'positions' for the appearance of protonic entanglement in DNA seque nces are qualitatively determined. Furthermore, these 'positions' appe ar to correspond uniquely to dimers of adjacent base pairs of DNA. As a consequence, one can straightforwardly search for an enhanced appear ance of such entangled H-bonds in DNA sequences of living organisms, u sing the existing DNA databases. A quantitative analysis of protein-co ding DNA sequences of various organisms has been performed, the result s of which provide strong evidence for the existence of the considered effect. The most striking finding may be summarized as follows: Quant um entanglement appears preferably between the third base of a codon a nd the first base of the following one. Quantitative estimates of this and further obtained results are presented. It is also shown that qua ntum-chemical considerations of stacking energies cannot account for t he results. The new findings provide first evidence for the biological significance of entangled H-bonds.