Related papers: Force-induced misfolding in RNA
We consider mechanically generated molecular braids composed of two molecules where long range interactions between them can be considered to be very weak. We describe a model that takes account of the thermal fluctuations of the braid,…
We study the basepairing dynamics of DNA with repetitive sequences where local strand slippage can create, annihilate, and move bulge loops. Using an explicit theoretical model, we find a rich dynamical behavior as a function of an applied…
RNA polymerase (RNAP) is a mobile molecular workshop that polymerizes a RNA molecule by adding monomeric subunits one by one, while moving step by step on the DNA template itself. Here we develop a theoretical model by incorporating the…
The number of protein structures is far less than the number of sequences. By imposing simple generic features of proteins (low energy and compaction) on all possible sequences we show that the structure space is sparse compared to the…
We view the folding of RNA-sequences as a map that assigns a pattern of base pairings to each sequence, known as secondary structure. These preimages can be constructed as random graphs (i.e. the neutral networks associated to the structure…
RNA protein interactions control the fate of cellular RNAs and play an important role in gene regulation. An interdependency between such interactions allows for the implementation of logic functions in gene regulation. We investigate the…
We develop a simple model to study the effects of an applied force on the melting of a double stranded DNA (dsDNA). Using this model, we could study the stretching, unzipping, rupture and slippage like transition in a dsDNA. We show that in…
We construct a minimalist model of RNA secondary-structure formation and use it to study the mapping from sequence to structure. There are strong, qualitative differences between two-letter and four or six-letter alphabets. With only two…
It is known from the wave-like motion of microtubules in motility assays that the piconewton forces that motors produce can be sufficient to bend the filaments. In cellular phenomena such as cytosplasmic streaming, molecular motors…
Because of the potential link between -1 programmed ribosomal frameshifting and response of a pseudoknot (PK) RNA to force, a number of single molecule pulling experiments have been performed on PKs to decipher the mechanism of programmed…
It has been observed that the topology of the native state is an important determinant of protein folding kinetics and there is a significant correlation between folding rate and relative contact order (RCO) in two-state small single-domain…
We present Molecular Dynamics simulations of a single stranded unprotonated DNA i-motif in explicit solvent. Our results indicate that the native structure in non-acidic solution at 300 K is unstable and completely vanishes on a time scale…
A reduced model, which can fold both helix and sheet structures, is proposed to study the problem of protein folding. The goal of this model is to find an unbiased effective potential that has included the effects of water and at the same…
In this paper we study irreducibility in RNA structures. By RNA structure we mean RNA secondary as well as RNA pseudoknot structures. In our analysis we shall contrast random and minimum free energy (mfe) configurations. We compute various…
In structure-based models of proteins, one often assumes that folding is accomplished when all contacts are established. This assumption may frequently lead to a conceptual problem that folding takes place in a temperature region of very…
Cell mechanical properties are fundamental to the organism but remain poorly understood. We report a comprehensive phenomenological framework for the nonlinear rheology of single fibroblast cells: a superposition of elastic stiffening and…
Recent experiments showed that multiple copies of the molecular machine RNA polymerase (RNAP) can efficiently synthesize mRNA collectively in the active state of the promoter. However, environmentally-induced promoter repression results in…
Transcription is the first step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is copied to RNA by the enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP). Despite many details of the complex interactions between DNA and RNA synthesis disclosed…
We propose a scenario for the prebiotic co-evolution of RNA and of fast folding proteins with large entropy gaps as observed today. We show from very general principles that the folding and unfolding of the proteins synthesized by RNA can…
We enumerate the number of RNA contact structures according to their genus, i.e. the topological character of their pseudoknots. By using a recently proposed matrix model formulation for the RNA folding problem, we obtain exact results for…