English

Tangle analysis of difference topology experiments: applications to a Mu protein-DNA complex

Geometric Topology 2016-01-20 v1

Abstract

We develop topological methods for analyzing difference topology experiments involving 3-string tangles. Difference topology is a novel technique used to unveil the structure of stable protein-DNA complexes involving two or more DNA segments. We analyze such experiments for the Mu protein-DNA complex. We characterize the solutions to the corresponding tangle equations by certain knotted graphs. By investigating planarity conditions on these graphs we show that there is a unique biologically relevant solution. That is, we show there is a unique rational tangle solution, which is also the unique solution with small crossing number.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0710.4150,
  title  = {Tangle analysis of difference topology experiments: applications to a Mu protein-DNA complex},
  author = {Isabel K. Darcy and John Luecke and Mariel Vazquez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.4150},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

60 pages, 74 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:34:52.438Z