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The shear-jamming of dense suspensions can be strongly affected by molecular-scale interactions between particles, e.g. by chemically controlling their propensity for hydrogen bonding. However, hydrogen bonding not only enhances…
Contribution of metal ions on nucleic acids structures and functions is undeniable. Among the available metal ions like Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ etc., the role that play the Mg2+ ion is very significant related to the stability of the structures…
Exact numerical methods and stochastic simulation methods are developed to study the force stretching single RNA issue on the secondary structure level in equilibrium. By computing the force-extension curves on the constant force and the…
Using all atom molecular dynamics simulations, we report spontaneous unzipping and strong binding of small interfering RNA (siRNA) on graphene. Our dispersion corrected density functional theory based calculations suggest that nucleosides…
The functioning of double-stranded (ds) nucleic acids (NAs) in cellular processes is strongly mediated by their elastic response. These processes involve proteins that interact with dsDNA or dsRNA and distort their structures. The…
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…
Nowadays different experimental techniques, such as single molecule or relaxation experiments, can provide dynamic properties of biomolecular systems, but the amount of detail obtainable with these methods is often limited in terms of time…
RNA pseudoknots are a kind of minimal RNA tertiary structural motifs, and their three-dimensional (3D) structures and stability play essential roles in a variety of biological functions. Therefore, to predict 3D structures and stability of…
Enhanced dynamical fluctuations of RNAs, facilitated by a network of water molecules with strong interactions with RNA, are suspected to be critical in their ability to respond to a variety of cellular signals. Using atomically detailed…
Nuclear quantum effects (NQEs) arising from the light mass of hydrogen can influence the structure and stability of hydrogen-bonded biomolecules, yet their role in determining peptide and protein folding remains unclear. Experiments show…
RNA/protein interactions play crucial roles in controlling gene expression. They are becoming important targets for pharmaceutical applications. Due to RNA flexibility and to the strength of electrostatic interactions, standard docking…
We study the force-induced unfolding of random disordered RNA or single-stranded DNA polymers. The system undergoes a second order phase transition from a collapsed globular phase at low forces to an extensive necklace phase with a…
By exerting mechanical force it is possible to unfold/refold RNA molecules one at a time. In a small range of forces, an RNA molecule can hop between the folded and the unfolded state with force-dependent kinetic rates. Here, we introduce a…
Biomolecular condensates have been shown to play a fundamental role in localizing biochemistry in a cell. RNA is a common constituent of condensates, and can determine their biophysical properties. Functions of biomolecular condensates are…
While largely studied on the macroscopic scale, the dynamics leading to nucleation and fission processes in atmospheric aerosols are still poorly understood at the molecular level. Here, we present a joint experimental-theoretical study of…
Urea is widely used as a protein denaturant. However, the potential of urea to form self-assembled structures at higher concentrations and the influence of its self-interactions on water structure and dynamics remains elusive. This open…
We study the folding of RNA secondary structures with quenched sequence randomness by means of the constrained annealing method. A thermodynamic phase transition is induced by including the conformational weight of loop structures. In…
A theory of the unzipping of double-stranded (ds) DNA is presented, and is compared to recent micromanipulation experiments. It is shown that the interactions which stabilize the double helix and the elastic rigidity of single strands (ss)…
We introduce a method for predicting RNA folding pathways, with an application to the most important RNA tetraloops. The method is based on the idea that ensembles of three-dimensional fragments extracted from high-resolution crystal…
RNA interference, particularly siRNA induced gene silencing is becoming an important avenue of modern therapeutics. The siRNA is delivered to the cells as short double helical RNA which becomes single stranded for forming the RISC complex.…