Title: nucleic acid–protein interaction
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - nucleic acid–protein interaction
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.09877
Status: current

Definition
Formation of specific or non-specific complexes between deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins, mediated and stabilised by a network of non-covalent interactions.

Note
Nucleic acid–protein interactions are critical for basic cellular functions such as replication, transcription, translation, recombination, DNA repair etc. as well as for fine regulation of them. Proteins may bind more tightly to specific sequences in the nucleic acid or non-specifically, in which case their affinity is independent of sequence.

Related Terms
- affinity: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/09661
- non-covalent interactions: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/09875
- recombination: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/09722

Source
- PAC, 2018, 90, 1121. 'Terminology of bioanalytical methods (IUPAC Recommendations 2018)' on page 1185 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2016-1120)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09877/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09877/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/09877/xml

Citation: Citation: 'nucleic acid–protein interaction' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.09877
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-04-18T04:00:29+00:00