Figure 1.
(upper) The symbols are measurements of entropy change and enthalpy change for imino proton exchange for several basepairs in RNA. The dashed fitting line yields the compensation temperature TC and free energy ΔGC for the measurements. The line labeled ΔH/T shows exact compensation; the line labeled ΔH/(1/T + 1/TV) shows the effects of water's structural relaxation and vibrational quantization (multi-excitation entropy). (lower) The solid symbols show Gibbs free energy measurements on the base pairs ΔGi. The open symbols show the free energies after correction for water's structural relaxation and vibrational quantization.