Related papers: Knot-controlled ejection of a polymer from a virus…
We present in this work in vitro measurements of the force ejecting DNA from two distinct bacteriophages (T5 and lambda) using the smotic-suppression technique. Our data are analyzed by revisiting the current theories of DNA packaging in…
Capillary thinning of polymeric fluids is central to biological and industrial processes, yet the mechanisms governing thinning dynamics remain unresolved, especially for semi-flexible polymers. Using ideal solutions of semi-flexible DNA,…
Knots (emission features in jets of active galactic nuclei) often show non-ballistic dynamics and variable emission/polarization properties. We model these features as emission pattern propagating in a jet that carries helical magnetic…
We present a critique and extension of the mean-field approach to the mechanical pulling transition in bound polymer systems. Our model is motivated by the theoretically and experimentally important examples of adsorbed polymers and…
We study by Monte Carlo simulations a model of knotted polymer ring adsorbing onto an impenetrable, attractive wall. The polymer is described by a self-avoiding polygon (SAP) on the cubic lattice. We find that the adsorption transition…
We present a novel phenomenological theory describing how topological constraints in prime-knot ring polymers induce collective (cooperative) modes of motion. In low-complexity knots, chain segments can move quasi-independently. However, as…
The ongoing effort to detect and characterize physical entanglement in biopolymers has so far established that knots are present in many globular proteins and also abound in viral DNA packaged inside bacteriophages. RNA molecules, on the…
We consider the problem of an inextensible but flexible fiber advected by a steady chaotic flow, and ask the simple question whether the fiber can spontaneously knot itself. Using a 1D Cosserat model, a simple local viscous drag model and…
Common experience tells us that a knot significantly weakens the polymer strand in which it is tied, which in turn leads to more facile chain rupture under tensile loading. Using first-principles molecular dynamics calculations we describe…
Recent in vitro experiments have shown that DNA ejection from bacteriophage can be partially stopped by surrounding osmotic pressure when ejected DNA is digested by DNase I on the course of ejection. We argue in this work by combination of…
Proteins can sometimes be knotted, and for many reasons the study of knotted proteins is rapidly becoming very important. For example, it has been proposed that a knot increases the stability of a protein. Knots may also alter enzymatic…
We propose a mechanism in which two molecular knots pass through each other and swap positions along a polymer strand. Associated free energy barriers in our simulations only amount to a few $k_{B}T$, which may enable the interchange of…
We introduce a two-dimensional lattice model for the description of knotted polymer rings. A polymer configuration is modeled by a closed polygon drawn on the square diagonal lattice, with possible crossings describing pairs of strands of…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the static and dynamic properties of spherical nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in a disordered and polydisperse polymer network. Purely repulsive (RNP) as well as weakly attractive (ANP) polymer-NP…
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…
Bacteriophages infect cells by attaching to the outer membrane and injecting their DNA into the cell.The phage DNA is then transcribed by the cell's transcription machinery.A number of physical mechanisms by which DNA can be translocated…
We present a molecular dynamics study of the influence of knot complexity and molecular mass on glass formation upon cooling in knotted ring polymer melts. We find that cooperative motion, rigidity, and glassy dynamics can be tuned over a…
Living organisms employ diverse strategies to navigate confined environments. Inspired by translocation observations on California blackworms (\textit{Lumbriculus variegatus}), we combine biological experiments and active-polymer…
We construct a new statistical physical model of polymer translocation through a pore in a membrane treated as the diffusion process across a free energy barrier. We determine the translocation time in terms of chain flexibility yielding an…
We study the outflow of soft particles through quasi-two-dimensional hoppers with both experiments and simulations. The experiments utilize spheres made with soft hydrogel, silicon rubber and glass. The hopper chamber has an adjustable exit…