Cot1/2 = 1/k = kinetic complexity. The Cot1/2 of a reaction is directly proportional to the amount of DNA in a genome; that is, the Cot1/2 is a molecular ruler. Thus, assuming that the E. coli genome has 4.2 x 106 bp of unique DNA sequences (it is really 4,639,221 bp), we can use the following equation to determine the complexity of any genome:
Cot1/2 (DNA of any genome)/ Cot1/2 (E. coli DNA) = (Complexity of any genome)/4.2 x 106 bp
Using information from the curves below, we could calculate the size of T4 DNA = (0.3) (4.2 x 106 bp)/9 = 1.4 x 105 bp, in reasonable agreement with the value of 1.7 x 105 bp.