Studies on the spectrophotometric determination of DNA hybridization from renaturation rates.

The optical method of De Ley et al. (1970) for determining DNA/DNA homologies was reexamined. Several parameters such as incubation temperature, incubation time, DNA concentration and DNA fragment length were checked and the optimal conditions established. Hybridization data of several anaerobic Gram-positive cocci were compared with values obtained by the membrane filter technique. The agreement is excellent above a degree of binding of 25-30%.