Related papers: Protein-mediated DNA Loop Formation and Breakdown …
Transposable elements, or transposons, are DNA sequences that can jump from site to site in the genome during the life cycle of a cell, usually encoding the very enzymes which perform their excision. However, some transposons are parasitic,…
The thermodynamical stability of DNA minicircles is investigated by means of path integral techniques. Hydrogen bonds between base pairs on complementary strands can be broken by thermal fluctuations and temporary fluctuational openings…
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…
Biopolymer looping is a dynamic process that occurs ubiquitously in cells for gene regulation, protein folding, etc. In cellular environments, biopolymers are often subject to tensions which are either static, or temporally fluctuating far…
DNA in sperm cells must undergo an extreme compaction to almost crystalline packing levels. To produce this dense packing, DNA is condensed by protamine, a positively charged protein that loops the DNA into a toroid. Our goal is to…
Eukaryotic transcription generally occurs in bursts of activity lasting minutes to hours; however, state-of-the-art measurements have revealed that many of the molecular processes that underlie bursting, such as transcription factor binding…
We consider the dependence of the electron transfer in photosynthetic complexes on correlation properties of random fluctuations of the protein environment. The electron subsystem is modeled by a finite network of connected electron…
By combining analytical and numerical calculations, we investigate the minimal-energy shape of short DNA loops of approximately $100$ base pairs (bp). We show that in these loops the excess twist density oscillates as a response to an…
Gene regulatory dynamics is governed by molecular processes and therefore exhibits an inherent stochasticity. However, for the survival of an organism it is a strict necessity that this intrinsic noise does not prevent robust functioning of…
We study the effect of transcription on the kinetics of DNA supercoiling in 3D by means of Brownian dynamics simulations of a single nucleotide resolution coarse-grained model for double stranded DNA. By accounting for the action of a…
The intrinsic stochasticity of gene expression is usually mitigated in higher eukaryotes by post-transcriptional regulation channels that stabilise the output layer, most notably protein levels. The discovery of small non-coding RNAs…
Non-coding RNA sequences play a great role in controlling a number of cellular functions, thus raising the need to understand their complex conformational dynamics in quantitative detail. In this perspective, we first show that single…
We present direct measurements of fluctuations in the nucleus of yeast cells. While prior work has shown these fluctuations to be active and non-thermal in character, their origin and time dependence are not understood. We show that the…
Cell growth and gene expression, essential elements of all living systems, have long been the focus of biophysical interrogation. Advances in single-cell methods have invigorated theoretical studies into these processes. However, until…
Eukaryotic cells are often exposed to fluctuations in growth conditions as well as endogenous and exogenous stress-related agents. In addition, during development global patterns of gene transcription change dramatically, and these changes…
In this paper we consider a physical system in which two DNA molecules braid about each other. The distance between the two molecular ends, on either side of the braid, is held at a distance much larger than supercoiling radius of the…
Charge transfer can take place along double helical DNA over distances as long as 30 nanometers. However, given the active role of the thermal environment surrounding charge carriers in DNA, physical mechanisms driving the transfer process…
Stochasticity in gene expression can give rise to fluctuations in protein levels and lead to phenotypic variation across a population of genetically identical cells. Recent experiments indicate that bursting and feedback mechanisms play…
Stochastic dynamics govern many important processes in cellular biology, and an underlying theoretical approach describing these dynamics is desirable to address a wealth of questions in biology and medicine. Mathematical tools exist for…
Gene expression is a random or noisy process. The process consists of several random events among which the reinitiation of transcription by RNAP is an important one. The RNAP molecules can bind the gene only after the promoter gets…