Related papers: Comment on `Nanoconfinement-enhanced conformationa…
Following Poland and Scheraga, we consider a simplified model for the denaturation transition of DNA. The two strands are modeled as interacting polymer chains. The attractive interactions, which mimic the pairing between the four bases,…
The tethered-particle method is a single-molecule technique that has been used to explore the dynamics of a variety of macromolecules of biological interest. We give a theoretical analysis of the particle motions in such experiments. Our…
Dynamics of DNA bubbles are of interest for both statistical physics and biology. We present exact solutions to the Fokker-Planck equation governing bubble dynamics in the presence of a long-range entropic interaction. The complete meeting…
Here we derive and experimentally test a free energy functional that captures the adhesion of DNA-coated emulsion droplets. Generalizing previous approaches, the theory combines important energetic and entropic effects of microscopic DNA…
We investigate the influences of the excluded volume of molecules on biochemical reaction processes on 2-dimensional surfaces using a model of signal transduction processes on biomembranes. We perform simulations of the 2-dimensional…
Structural changes in giant DNA induced by the addition of the flexible polymer PEG were examined by the method of single-DNA observation. In dilute DNA conditions, individual DNA assumes a compact state via a discrete coil-globule…
A lattice model of RNA denaturation which fully accounts for the excluded volume effects among nucleotides is proposed. A numerical study shows that interactions forming pseudoknots must be included in order to get a sharp continuous…
We report extensive simulations of the relaxation dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer confined inside a cylindrical pore. In particular, we concentrate on examining how confinement influences the scaling behavior of the global relaxation…
Quartz nanopipettes are an important emerging class of electric single-molecule sensors for DNA, proteins, their complexes as well as other biomolecular targets. However, in comparison to other resistive pulse sensors, nanopipettes…
The behavior of long DNA molecules in a cell-sized confined space was investigated. We prepared water-in-oil droplets covered by phospholipids, which mimic the inner space of a cell, following the encapsulation of DNA molecules with…
Effect of bending anisotropy on a planar DNA loop, using energy minimization and neglecting entropic effects, is studied. We show that the anisotropy results in polygonal shape of the loop and increasing the anisotropy makes the edges…
Two-dimensional semiflexible polymer rings are studied both by imaging circular DNA adsorbed on a mica surface and by Monte Carlo simulations of phantom polymers as well as of polymers with finite thickness. Comparison of size and shape of…
The nature and the universal properties of DNA thermal denaturation are investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. For suitable lattice models we determine the exponent c describing the decay of the probability distribution of denaturated…
We analyse the effects of the environment (solvent quality, presence of extended structures - crowded environment) that may have impact on the order of the transition between denaturated and bounded DNA states and lead to changes in the…
In this work we examine how volume exclusion caused by regions of high chromatin density might influence the time required for proteins to find specific DNA binding sites. The spatial variation of chromatin density within mouse olfactory…
We study the effect of physical confinement on the capillary infiltration of polymers into cylindrical nanopores using molecular dynamics simulations. In particular, we probe whether the critical contact angle above which capillary rise…
We show that the simple analytical model proposed by Zhang and Marko (Phys. Rev. E 77, 031916 (2008)) to illustrate Maxwell relations for single-DNA experiments can be improved by including the zero-force entropy of a Gaussian chain. The…
Advancement in nanotechnology is dependent on the understanding of the behavior of matter in nanoscale. In this report we have demonstrated, through a unique molecular simulation procedure, that properties of matter in nanosystems do not…
The Poisson--Nernst--Planck (PNP) equations have been widely applied to describe ionic transport in ion channels, nanofluidic devices, and many electrochemical systems. Despite their wide applications, the PNP equations fail in predicting…
Excluded volume effects are incorporated in the quark meson coupling model to take into account in a phenomenological way the hard core repulsion of the nuclear force. The formalism employed is thermodynamically consistent and does not…