Related papers: Mechanical response of plectonemic DNA: an analyti…
We present a phenomenological dynamical model able to describe the stretching features of the curve of DNA length vs applied force. As concerns the chain, the model is based on the discrete wormlike chain model with elastic modifications,…
We predict various detectable mechanical responses to the presence of local DNA defects which are defined as short DNA segments exhibiting mechanical properties obviously different from the 50 nm persistence length based semiflexible…
We recently proposed a dynamical mesoscopic model for DNA, which is based, like statistical ones, on site-dependent finite stacking and pairing enthalpies. In the present article, we first describe how the parameters of this model are…
The self-assembly of DNA-coated colloids into highly-ordered structures offers great promise for advanced optical materials. However, control of disorder, defects, melting, and crystal growth is hindered by the lack of a microscopic…
While slowly turning the ends of a single molecule of DNA at constant applied force, a discontinuity was recently observed at the supercoiling transition, when a small plectoneme is suddenly formed. This can be understood as an abrupt…
Using a theoretical model for spontaneous partial DNA unwrapping from histones, we study the transient exposure of protein-binding DNA sites within nucleosomes. We focus on the functional dependence of the rates for site exposure and…
The percentage and sequence of AT and GC base pairs and charges on the DNA backbone contribute significantly to the stiffness of DNA. This elastic property of DNA also changes with small interacting ligands. The single-molecule force…
Three coarse-grained models of the double-stranded DNA are proposed and compared in the context of mechanical manipulation such as twisting and various schemes of stretching. The models differ in the number of effective beads (between two…
We present a perturbation theory to find the response of an anisotropic DNA to the external tension. It is shown that the anisotropy has a nonzero but small contribution to the force-extension curve of the DNA. Thus an anisotropic DNA…
All-atom simulations have become increasingly popular to study conformational and dynamical properties of nucleic acids as they are accurate and provide high spatial and time resolutions. This high resolution however comes at a heavy…
We analyze the dynamics of structural transitions between normal right-handed B form and unusual left-handed Z form for a linear DNA molecule. The dynamics under the external torque in physiological buffer is modeled by a Langevin equation,…
Evaluating accessible conformational space is computationally expensive and thermal motions are partly neglected in computer models of molecular interactions. This produces error into the estimates of binding strength. We introduce a method…
We studied the electrical conductivity of DNA molecules with conducting atomic force microscopy as a function of the chemical nature of the substrate surfaces, the nature of the electrical contact, and the number of DNA molecules (from a…
We calculate the probability of DNA loop formation mediated by regulatory proteins such as Lac repressor (LacI), using a mathematical model of DNA elasticity. Our model is adapted to calculating quantities directly observable in Tethered…
Optically levitated dielectric nanoparticles have become valuable tools for precision sensing and quantum optomechanical experiments. To predict the dynamic properties of a particle trapped in an optical tweezer with high fidelity, a tool…
The mechanism of threshold elongation (overstretching) of DNA macromolecules under the action of external force is studied within the framework of phenomenological approach. When considering the task it is taken into account that…
Trapping, linearization, and imaging of single molecule DNA is of broad interest to both biophysicists who study polymer physics and engineers who build nucleic acid analyzing methods such as optical mapping. In this study, single DNA…
Specific binding of proteins to DNA is one of the most common ways in which gene expression is controlled. Although general rules for the DNA-protein recognition can be derived, the ambiguous and complex nature of this mechanism precludes a…
The folding of RNA and DNA strands plays crucial roles in biological systems and bionanotechnology. However, studying these processes with high-resolution numerical models is beyond current computational capabilities due to the timescales…
We present a simple model which describes elastic response of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) to stretching, including the regime of very high force (up to 1000 pN). ssDNA is modelled as a discreet persistent chain, whose ground state is a…