Related papers: Force-induced rupture of a DNA duplex
Single-molecule experiments provide new insights into biological processes hitherto not accessible by measurements performed on bulk systems. We report on a study of the kinetics of a triple-branch DNA molecule with four conformational…
We study at the laboratory scale the rupture of thin floating sheets made of a brittle material under a wave-induced mechanical forcing. We show that the rupture occurs where the curvature is maximum and the break-up threshold strongly…
We modify and extend the recently developed statistical mechanical model for predicting the thermodynamic properties of chain molecules having noncovalent double-stranded conformations, as in RNA or ssDNA, and $\beta-$sheets in protein, by…
We generalize the Poland-Scheraga model to consider DNA denaturation in the presence of an external stretching force. We demonstrate the existence of a force-induced DNA denaturation transition and obtain the temperature-force phase…
Single molecule experiments on single- and double stranded DNA have sparked a renewed interest in the force-extension of polymers. The extensible Freely Jointed Chain (FJC) model is frequently invoked to explain the observed behavior of…
We show how single-molecule unzipping experiments can provide strong evidence that the zero-force melting transition of long molecules of natural dsDNA should be classified as a phase transition of the higher-order type (continuous). We…
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,…
We investigate the role of bubble positioning in the force-induced melting of double-stranded DNA using two distinct approaches: Brownian Dynamics simulations and the Gaussian Network Model. We isolate the effect of bubble positioning by…
Optical tweezers are employed to measure the forces of interaction within a single pair of DNA-grafted colloids in dependence of the molecular weight of the DNA-chains, and the concentration and valence of the surrounding ionic medium. The…
The possibility of detecting mutations in a DNA from force measurements (as a first step towards sequence analysis) is discussed theoretically based on exact calculations. The force signal is associated with the domain wall separating the…
We study the dynamics of a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) segment, as a semiflexible polymer, in a shear flow, the strength of which is customarily expressed in terms of the dimensionless Weissenberg number Wi. Polymer chains in shear flows…
Creep tests on heterogeneous materials under subcritical loading typically show a power-law decaying strain rate before failure, with the exponent often considered material-dependent but independent of applied stress. By imposing successive…
By extending the classical Peyrard-Bishop model, we are able to obtain a fully analytical description for the mechanical resistance of DNA under stretching at variable values of temperature, number of base pairs and intrachains and…
We investigate the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA hairpins that fold/unfold under the action of applied mechanical force. We introduce the concept of the molecular free energy landscape and derive simplified expressions for the force…
The unzipping of a double stranded DNA whose ends are subjected to a time dependent periodic force with frequency $\omega$ and amplitude $G$ is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. We obtain the dynamical order parameter, $Q$, defined as…
DNA strand displacement is a key reaction in DNA homologous recombination and DNA mismatch repair and is also heavily utilized in DNA-based computation and locomotion. Despite its ubiquity in science and engineering, sequence-dependent…
In mammalian cells, repair centers for DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) have been identified. However, previous researches predominantly rely on methods that induce specific DSBs by cutting particular DNA sequences. The clustering and its…
We perform a single molecule force spectroscopy study to characterize the role of the size (molecular weight) and concentration of depleting agents on DNA condensation and on the stabilization of the double-helix structure, showing that…
DNA supercoiling plays an important role in a variety of cellular processes. The torsional stress related with supercoiling may be also involved in gene regulation through the local structure and dynamics of the double helix. To check this…
Depletion forces play a role in the compaction and de-compation of chromosomal material in simple cells but it remains debatable whether they are sufficient to account for chromosomal collapse. We present coarse-grained molecular dynamics…