Related papers: A Generalized Theory of DNA Looping and Cyclizatio…
A common approach to quantifying DNA involves repeated cycles of DNA amplification. This approach, employed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), produces outputs that are corrupted by amplification noise, making it challenging to…
The Poland-Scheraga (PS) model for the helix-coil transition of DNA considers the statistical mechanics of the thermally induced binding of two complementary strands of DNA. In this paper, we show how to modify the PS model when a torque is…
The flexibility of short DNA chains is investigated via computation of the average correlation function between dimers which defines the persistence length. Path integration techniques have been applied to confine the phase space available…
DNA stretching experiments are usually interpreted using the worm-like chain model; the persistence length A appearing in the model is then interpreted as the elastic stiffness of the double helix. In fact the persistence length obtained by…
We examine the conformations of a model for a short segment of closed DNA. The molecule is represented as a cylindrically symmetric elastic rod with a constraint corresponding to a specification of the linking number. We obtain analytic…
This paper aims at a comprehensive understanding on the novel elastic property of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) discovered very recently through single-molecule manipulation techniques. A general elastic model for double-stranded biopolymers…
Organization and maintenance of the chromosomal DNA in living cells strongly depends on the DNA interactions with a plethora of DNA-binding proteins. Single-molecule studies show that formation of nucleoprotein complexes on DNA by such…
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…
A DNA-protein complex modelled by a semiflexible chain and an attractive spherical core is studied in the situation when an external stretching force is acting on one end monomer of the chain while the other end monomer is kept fixed in…
The mechanical properties of DNA play a critical role in many biological functions. For example, DNA packing in viruses involves confining the viral genome in a volume (the viral capsid) with dimensions that are comparable to the DNA…
We study the compression and extension dynamics of a DNA-like polymer interacting with non-DNA binding and DNA-binding proteins, by means of computer simulations. The geometry we consider is inspired by recent experiments probing the…
Loops are essential secondary structure elements in folded DNA and RNA molecules and proliferate close to the melting transition. Using a theory for nucleic acid secondary structures that accounts for the logarithmic entropy c ln m for a…
We investigated how the finiteness of the length of the sequence affects the phase transition that takes place at DNA melting temperature. For this purpose, we modified the Transfer Integral method to adapt it to the calculation of both…
We investigate diffusion-limited reactions between a diffusing particle and a target site on a semiflexible polymer, a key factor determining the kinetics of DNA-protein binding and polymerization of cytoskeletal filaments. Our theory…
DNA strings and their properties are widely studied since last 20 years due to its applications in DNA computing. In this area, one designs a set of DNA strings (called DNA code) which satisfies certain thermodynamic and combinatorial…
Understanding looping probabilities, including the particular case of ring-closure or cyclization, of fluctuating polymers (eg DNA) is important in many applications in molecular biology and chemistry. In a continuum limit the configuration…
We report model calculations on DNA single strands which describe the equilibrium dynamics and kinetics of hairpin formation and melting. Modeling is at the level of single bases. Strand rigidity is described in terms of simple polymer…
We present a computational method to evaluate the end-to-end and the contour length distribution functions of short DNA molecules described by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian. The method generates a large statistical ensemble of possible…
Helical molecules change their twist number under the effect of a mechanical load. We study the twist-stretch relation for a set of short DNA molecules modeled by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian. Finite temperature path integral techniques are…
DNA is increasingly employed for bio and nanotechnology thanks to its exquisite versatility and designability. Most of its use is limited to linearised and torsionally relaxed DNA but non-trivial architectures and torsionally constrained --…