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Mixtures of ideal polymers with hard spheres whose diameters are smaller than the radius of gyration of the polymer, exhibit extensive immiscibility. The interfacial tension between demixed phases of these mixtures is estimated, as is the…
The interplay between structure-search of the native structure and desolvation in protein folding has been explored using a minimalist model. These results support a folding mechanism where most of the structural formation of the protein is…
Polymers contain functional groups that participate in hydrogen bond (H-bond) with water molecules, establishing a robust H-bond network that influences bulk properties. This study utilized molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to examine the…
The behavior of mesoscopic particles dissolved in a dilute solution of long, flexible, and nonadsorbing polymer chains is studied by field-theoretic methods. For spherical and cylindrical particles the solvation free energy for immersing a…
We develop a theoretical description of the topological disentanglement occurring when torus knots reach the ends of a semi-flexible polymer under tension. These include decays into simpler knots and total unknotting. The minimal number of…
Polymer chains immersed in different solvent molecules exhibit diverse properties due to multiple spatiotemporal scales and complex interactions. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we study the conformational and static properties of…
Here, we show by solution nuclear magnetic resonance measurements that the urea-unfolded protein apoazurin becomes elongated when the synthetic crowding agent dextran 20 is present, in contrast to the prediction from the macromolecular…
We present and analyze correlation functions of a main-chain polymer nematic in a continuum worm-like chain description for two types of constraints formalized by the tensorial and vectorial conservation laws, both originating in the…
Membrane and nuclear proteins of poor solubility have been separated by high resolution two-dimensional (2-D) gel electrophoresis. Isoelectric focusing with immobilized pH gradients leads to severe quantitative losses of proteins in the…
Of all complex fluids, it is probably the rheology of polymers we understand best. In-depth insight into the entanglement and reptation of individual polymers allows us to predict for instance the shear-thinning rheology and the behaviour…
DNA toroids are compact torus-shaped bundles formed by one or multiple DNA molecules being condensed from the solution due to various condensing agents. It has been shown that the DNA toroidal bundles are twisted. However, the global…
We present an analytical theory for heteropolymer deformation, as exemplified experimentally by stretching of single protein molecules. Using a mean-field replica theory, we determine phase diagrams for stress-induced unfolding of typical…
The rheological behavior of polymer melts is strongly influenced by parameters such as chain length, chain stiffness, and architecture. In particular, shear thinning, characterized by a power-law decrease in shear viscosity with increasing…
We investigate the collapse and expansion dynamics of a linear polyelectrolyte (PE) with hydrodynamic interactions. Using dissipative particle dynamics with a bead-spring PE model, long-range electrostatics and explicit ions we examine how…
Protein molecules often self-assemble by means of non-covalent physical bonds to form extended filaments, such as amyloids, F-actin, intermediate filaments, and many others. The kinetics of filament growth is limited by the disassembly…
Electro-osmosis (EO) is a powerful tool to manipulate liquids in micro and nanofluidic systems. While EO has been studied extensively at liquid-solid interfaces, the case of liquid-vapor interfaces, found e.g. in foam films and bubbles,…
Although both RNA and proteins have densely packed native structures, chain organizations of these two biopolymers are fundamentally different. Motivated by the recent discoveries in chromatin folding that interphase chromosomes have…
Protein chains of the (FG)$_n$ ($n \simeq$ 300) type cap the cytoplasmatic side of the nucleopore complex, which connects the nucleus to the remainder of an eukaryotic cell. We study the properties of three fundamental polymer models that…
Far from being a passive information store, the genome is a mechanically dynamic and diverse system in which torsion and tension fluctuate and combine to determine structure and help regulate gene expression. Much of this mechanical…
Mechanical degradation of dilute solutions of polyethylene oxide (PEO) via chain scission was investigated within a turbulent pipe flow. Comparisons of the drag reduction performance with and without degradation were made by matching the…