Related papers: DNA as a one-dimensional chiral material: Applicat…
Conformational change of a DNA molecule is frequently observed in multiple biological processes and has been modelled using a chain of strongly coupled oscillators with a nonlinear bistable potential. While the mechanism and properties of…
We use optical tweezers to perform stretching experiments on DNA molecules when interacting with the drugs daunomycin and ethidium bromide, which intercalate the DNA molecule. These experiments are performed in the low-force regime from…
The effect of electrostatic interactions on the stretching of DNA is investigated using a simple worm like chain model. In the limit of small force there are large conformational fluctuations which are treated using a self-consistent…
Double-stranded DNA `overstretches' at a pulling force of about 65 pN, increasing in length by a factor of 1.7. The nature of the overstretched state is unknown, despite its considerable importance for DNA's biological function and…
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…
Literature data on the properties of DNA open states are reviewed and analyzed. These states are formed as a result of strong DNA fluctuations and have a great impact on a number of biochemical processes; among them is charge transfer in…
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 Kirchhoff elastic theory of thin filaments with spontaneous curvature is employed in the understanding of the onset of the kink transitions observed in short DNA rings. Dynamical analysis shows that when its actual curvature is less…
We show that a mesoscale model, with a minimal number of parameters, can well describe the thermomechanical and mechanochemical behavior of homogeneous DNA at thermal equilibrium under tension and torque. We predict critical temperatures…
We use a statistical mechanical model to study nonthermal denaturation of DNA in the presence of protein-mediated loops. We find that looping proteins which randomly link DNA bases located at a distance along the chain could cause a…
We report a theoretical study of DNA flexibility and quantitatively predict the ring closure probability as a function of DNA contour length. Recent experimental studies show that the flexibility of short DNA fragments (as compared to the…
The structural flexibility of nucleic acids plays a key role in many fundamental life processes, such as gene replication and expression, DNA-protein recognition, and gene regulation. To obtain a thorough understanding of nucleic acid…
We examine the conformations of a model for under- and overwound DNA. The molecule is represented as a cylindrically symmetric elastic string subjected to a stretching force and to constraints corresponding to a specification of the link…
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 introduce a novel model for DNA condensation (whip-toroid transition) using the path integral method in the framework of the non-linear sigma model on a line segment. We show that some of its classical configurations exhibit toroidal…
We propose a generic model of driven DNA under the influence of an oscillatory force of amplitude $F$ and frequency $\nu$ and show the existence of a dynamical transition for a chain of finite length. We find that the area of the hysteresis…
A theoretical framework for evaluating the approximate energy and dynamic properties associated with the folding of DNA into nucleosomes and chromatin is presented. For this purpose experimentally determined elastic constants of linear DNA…
DNA is an astonishing material that can be used as a molecular building block to construct periodic arrays and devices with nanoscale accuracy and precision. Here, we present simple bead-spring model of DNA nanostars having three, four and…
A model for the motion of ring-shaped DNA in a gel is introduced and studied by numerical simulations and a mean-field approximation. The ring motion is mediated by finger-shaped loops (hernias) that move in an amoeba-like fashion around…
The flexibility and the extension along the direction of the force are shown to be related to the bubble number fluctuation and the average number of bubbles respectively, when the strands of the DNA are subjected to a force along the same…