A quantitative measure of DNA curvature enabling the comparison of predicted structures.

A growing body of data indicates that the equilibrium structures of some DNA fragments are curved and that curvature is sequence-directed. We describe a quantitative measure of DNA curvature that can be used for evaluating and comparing current proposed models for the molecular basis of DNA curvature. We demonstrate that this measure, in conjunction with any given prediction model, enables both the comparison of experimental data to predictions and the scanning of nucleotide sequence databases for potential curved regions.