Related papers: Microscopic implications of S-DNA
We studied the unzipping kinetics of single molecules of double-stranded DNA by pulling one of their two strands through a narrow protein pore. PCR analysis yielded the first direct proof of DNA unzipping in such a system. The time to unzip…
The strong bending of polymers is poorly understood. We propose a general quantitative framework of polymer bending that includes both the weak and strong bending regimes on the same footing, based on a single general physical principle. As…
The electrodynamic response of DNA in the millimeter wave range is investigated. By performing measurements under a wide range of humidity conditions and comparing the response of single strand DNA and double strand DNA, we show that the…
The accurate knowledge of the elastic properties of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) is key to characterize the thermodynamics of molecular reactions that are studied by force spectroscopy methods where DNA is mechanically unfolded. Examples…
Mechanical properties of DNA, in particular their stretch dependent extension and their loop formation characteristics, have been recognized as an effective probe for understanding the possible biochemical role played by them in a living…
Metropolis Monte Carlo simulation is used to investigate the elasticity of torsionally stressed double-stranded DNA, in which twist and supercoiling are incorporated as a natural result of base-stacking interaction and backbone bending…
While the behavior of double stranded DNA at mesoscopic scales is fairly well understood, less is known about its relation to the rich mechanical properties in the base-pair scale, which is crucial, for instance, to understand DNA-protein…
Simple expressions for the bending and the base-stacking energy of double-stranded semiflexible biopolymers (such as DNA and actin) are derived. The distribution of the folding angle between the two strands is obtained by solving a…
We study a class of micromanipulation experiments, exemplified by the pulling apart of the two strands of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). When the pulling force is increased to a critical value, an ``unzipping'' transition occurs. For random…
2D display is a fast and economical way of visualizing polymorphism and comparing genomes, which is based on the separation of DNA fragments in two steps, according first to their size and then to their sequence composition. In this paper,…
Unbinding of a double-stranded DNA reduces to an unscreened long range interaction and maps on various problems. Heterogeneity renormalizes interaction. Renormalization is temperature dependent. At an unbinding transition it approaches…
Due to its polyionic character the DNA double helix is stable and biologically active only in salty aqueous media where its charge is compensated by solvent counterions. Monovalent metal ions are ubiquitous in DNA environment and they are…
The hybridization and dehybridization of DNA subject to tension is relevant to fundamental genetic processes and to the design of DNA-based mechanobiology assays. While strong tension accelerates DNA melting and decelerates DNA annealing,…
The denaturation of double-stranded DNA as function of force and temperature is discussed. At room temperature, sequence heterogeneity dominates the physics of single molecule force-extension curves starting about 7 piconewtons of below a…
Multistep denaturation in a short circular DNA molecule is analyzed by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian model which accounts for the helicoidal geometry. Computation of melting profiles by the path integral method suggests that stacking…
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…
We present a phenomenological dynamical model able to describe the stretching features of the curve of DNA length vs applied force. As concerns the chain, the model is based on the discrete wormlike chain model with elastic modifications,…
The response of a semiflexible polyelectrolyte chain to stretching in the regimes of moderate and weak screening is studied theoretically, with a special focus on DNA experiments. By using the nonlinear Poisson--Boltzmann description of…
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 --…
We introduce a coarse-grained model of DNA with bases modeled as rigid-body ellipsoids to capture their anisotropic stereochemistry. Interaction potentials are all physicochemical and generated from all-atom simulation/parameterization with…