Related papers: Force-Extension for DNA in a Nanoslit: Using an Ef…
Negatively charged DNA can be compacted by positively charged dendrimers and the degree of compaction is a delicate balance between the strength of the electrostatic interaction and the elasticity of DNA. We report various elastic…
A double stranded DNA molecule under the stress of a pulling force acting on the strand terminals exhibits a partially denatured structure or can be completely unzipped depending the magnitude of the pulling force. A scaling argument for…
We develop a continuum elastic approach to examining the bending mechanics of semiflexible filaments with a local internal degree of freedom that couples to the bending modulus. We apply this model to study the nonlinear mechanics of a…
The scaling behavior of a directed polymer in a two-dimensional (2D) random potential under confining force is investigated. The energy of a polymer with configuration $\{y(x)\}$ is given by $H\big(\{y(x)\}\big) = \sum_{x=1}^N \exyx +…
We study the dynamics of a knot in a semiflexible polymer confined to a narrow channel of width comparable to the polymers' persistence length. Using a combination of Brownian dynamics simulations and a coarse-grained stochastic model, we…
A phenomenological model based on the three-dimensional theory of nonlinear elasticity is developed to describe the phenomenon of overstretching in the force-extension curve for dsDNA. By using the concept of a material with multiple…
The effect of a finite torque on semiflexible polymers in a confined environment is investigated. It is shown how a new lengthscale appears in the strongly confined limit. The influence of a torque on the extension of biopolymers in…
We study the effects of intrinsic sequence-dependent curvature for a two dimensional semiflexible biopolymer with short-range correlation in intrinsic curvatures. We show exactly that when not subjected to any external force, such a system…
We study the conformations of polymer chains in a poor solvent, with and without bending rigidity, by means of a simple statistical mechanics model. This model can be exactly solved for chains of length up to N=55 using exact enumeration…
Single-filament tracing has been a valuable tool to directly determine geometrical and mechanical properties of entangled polymer networks. However, systematically verifying how the stiffness of the tracer filament or its molecular…
We present a new method for calculating internal forces in DNA structures using coarse-grained models and demonstrate its utility with the oxDNA model. The instantaneous forces on individual nucleotides are explored and related to model…
In the present Comment we show that, contrary to the recent findings of Reisner et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 058302 (2007)], the excluded volume effect does not play an important role in determining DNA behavior in nanochannels at low ionic…
The percentage and sequence of AT and GC base pairs and charges on the DNA backbone contribute significantly to the stiffness of DNA. This elastic property of DNA also changes with small interacting ligands. The single-molecule force…
We present a theoretical description of the dynamics of a semi-flexible polymer being pulled through a nanopore by an external force acting at the pore. Our theory is based on the tensile blob picture of Pincus in which the front of the…
The mechanism and driving forces of chromosome segregation in the bacterial cell cycle of E. coli is one of the least understood events in its life cycle. Using principles of entropic repulsion between polymer loops confined in a cylinder,…
We report extensive simulations of the relaxation dynamics of a self-avoiding polymer confined inside a cylindrical pore. In particular, we concentrate on examining how confinement influences the scaling behavior of the global relaxation…
We obtain, using transfer matrix methods, the distribution function $P(R)$ of the end-to-end distance, the loop formation probability and force-extension relations in a model for short double-stranded DNA molecules. Accounting for the…
Composites of flexible and rigid polymers are ubiquitous in biology and industry alike, yet the physical principles determining their mechanical properties are far from understood. Here, we couple force spectroscopy with large-scale…
A DNA-protein complex modelled by a semiflexible chain and an attractive spherical core is studied in the situation when an external stretching force is acting on one end monomer of the chain while the other end monomer is kept fixed in…
A theory is presented of DNA hairpins enclosed in a nanochannel. A hairpin becomes constrained as it approaches the wall of a channel which leads to an entropic force causing the hairpin to tighten. The free energy of the hairpin computed…