Related papers: A Random Loop Model for Long Polymers
We propose a model for the formation of chromatin loops based on the diffusive sliding of a DNA-bound factor which can dimerise to form a molecular slip-link. Our slip-links mimic the behaviour of cohesin-like molecules, which, along with…
We investigate the kinetics of a polymer collapse due to the formation of irreversible crosslinks between its monomers. Using the contact probability $P(s)$ as a scale-dependent order parameter depending on the chemical distance $s$, our…
Condensation of hundreds of mega-base-pair-long human chromosomes in a small nuclear volume is a spectacular phenomenon. This process is driven by the formation of chromosome loops. ATP consuming motor, condensin, interacts with chromatin…
Certain polymer models are known to exhibit path localization in the sense that at low temperatures, the average fractional overlap of two independent samples from the Gibbs measure is bounded away from $0$. Nevertheless, the question of…
We argue that complex systems must possess long range correlations and illustrate this idea on the example of the mean field spin glass model. Defined on the complete graph, this model has no genuine concept of distance, but the long range…
We argue that the mean crossing number of a random polymer configuration is simply a measure of opacity, without being closely related to entanglement as claimed by several authors. We present an easy way of estimating its asymptotic…
We employ 3D Langevin Dynamics simulations to study the dynamics of polymer chains translocating through a nanopore in presence of asymmetric solvent conditions. Initially a large fraction ($>$ 50%) of the chain is placed at the…
Consider directed polymers in a random environment on the complete graph of size $N$. This model can be formulated as a product of i.i.d. $N\times N$ random matrices and its large time asymptotics is captured by Lyapunov exponents and the…
Loop formation between monomers in the interior of semiflexible chains describes elementary events in biomolecular folding and DNA bending. We calculate analytically the interior distance distribution function for semiflexible chains using…
By means of a minimal physical model, we investigate the interplay of two phase transitions at play in chromatin organization: (1) liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) within the fluid solvating chromatin, resulting in the formation of…
This paper leads with a random polymer model in $\Z^2$ having long-range self-repulsive interactions. By comparison with a long range one-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model we shown that the polymer models we considered here undergo a…
Tethered particle experiments use light microscopy to measure the position of a micrometer-sized bead tethered to a microscope slide via a ~micrometer length polymer, in order to infer the behavior of the invisible polymer. Currently, this…
We investigate the phase transition properties of the polymer-Potts model, a chain composed of monomers with magnetic degrees of freedom, with the motivation to study the conformation and mark switching dynamics of chromatin. By the…
Long-distance regulatory interactions between enhancers and their target genes are commonplace in higher eukaryotes. Interposed boundaries or insulators are able to block these long distance regulatory interactions. The mechanistic basis…
Through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we systematically study the effect of chain stiffness on the packing ability of linear polymers composed of hard spheres in extremely confined monolayers, corresponding effectively to 2D films.…
We investigate mutual local chain order in systems of fully flexible polymer melts in a simple generic bead-spring model. The excluded-volume interaction together with the connectivity leads to local ordering effects which are independent…
We use an off-lattice microscopic model for solutions of equilibrium polymers (EP) in a lamellar shear flow generated by means of a self-consistent external field between parallel hard walls. The individual conformations of the chains are…
Epigenetics is a driving force of important and ubiquitous phenomena in nature such as cell differentiation or even metamorphosis. Oppositely to its widespread role, understanding the biophysical principles that allow epigenetics to control…
We investigated the viscoelastic response of model interphase chromosomes by tracking the three-dimensional motion of hundreds of dispersed Brownian particles of sizes ranging from the thickness of the chromatin fiber up to slightly above…
We study the conformational properties of heteropolymers containing two types of monomers A and B, modeled as self-avoiding random walks on a regular lattice. Such a model can describe in particular the sequences of hydrophobic and…