Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.11.02.365098v1?rss=1 Authors: Plata, C. A., Marni, S., Maritan, A., Bellini, T., Suweis, S. Abstract: DNA hybridization is at the heart of countless biological and biotechnological processes. Its theoretical modeling played a crucial role, since it has enabled extracting the relevant thermodynamic parameters from systematic measurements of DNA melting curves. However, in its current state, hybridization modelling requires introducing an extra entropic contribution in self-complementary sequences that lacks any biophysical meaning. In this article, we propose a framework based on statistical physics to describe DNA hybridization and melting in an arbitrary mixture of DNA strands. In particular, we are able to analytically derive closed expressions of the system partition functions for any number N of strings, and explicitly calculate them in two paradigmatic situations: (i) a system made of self-complementary sequences and (ii) a system comprising two mutually complementary sequences. We derive the melting curve in the thermodynamic limit (N [->] {infty}) of our description, which differs from the expression commonly used to evaluate the melting of self-complementary systems in that it does not require correcting terms. We provide a thorough study comprising limit cases and alternative approaches showing how our framework can give a comprehensive view of hybridization and melting phenomena. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info