Why does high pH result in the denaturation of DNA?
The pKas of (neutral) guanine and thymine are 9-10 (ref). At high pH (>~10), those bases will be deprotonated and exist as negatively charged conjugate bases. As the deprotonated species, part of the G/C and A/T hydrogen bonding networks are eliminated. In the figure below, green dotted lines represent the hydrogen bonds that explain the observed base pairing. Red dotted lines represent disrupted interactions.