Biological charge transfer via flickering resonance

Electron transport through DNA plays a central role in nucleic acid damage and repair, and it is usually modeled using a carrier tunneling mechanism (at short distances) and a hopping mechanism (at longer distances). We find that fluctuations into transient geometries that bring multiple bases into electronic degeneracy may support band-like transport during the resonance lifetimes over a distance of ≲15 Å, obviating the need to invoke electron tunneling at short distances. This line of research may help to reveal mechanisms of charge transport in multiheme proteins, bacterial nanowires, and synthetic nanowires, and may also assist in framing the mechanisms of coherent multipigment excitonic transport in light-harvesting proteins.