Related papers: DNA cyclization and looping in the wormlike limit:…
The propensity of short DNA sequences to convert to the circular form is studied by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian method which incorporates both the bending of the molecule axis and the intrinsic twist of the DNA strands. The base pair…
DNA cyclization is a powerful technique to gain insight into the nature of DNA bending. The worm-like chain model provides a good description of small to moderate bending fluctuations, but some experiments on strongly-bent shorter molecules…
We have developed a generalized semi-analytic approach for efficiently computing cyclization and looping $J$ factors of DNA under arbitrary binding constraints. Many biological systems involving DNA-protein interactions impose precise…
Experimental data of the DNA cyclization (J-factor) at short length scales, as a way to study the elastic behavior of tightly bent DNA, exceed the theoretical expectation based on the wormlike chain (WLC) model by several orders of…
Understanding looping probabilities, including the particular case of ring-closure or cyclization, of fluctuating polymers (eg DNA) is important in many applications in molecular biology and chemistry. In a continuum limit the configuration…
We compute for the first time the effects of excluded volume on the probability for double-stranded DNA to form a loop. We utilize a Monte-Carlo algorithm for generation of large ensembles of self- avoiding worm-like chains, which are used…
Unusually high bending flexibility has been recently reported for DNA on short length scales. We use atomic force microscopy (AFM) in solution to obtain a direct estimate of DNA bending statistics for scales down to one helical turn. It…
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 short supercoiled circular DNA molecules are shown to be glassy systems and canonical Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations of the systems tend to get stuck in local metastable energy basins. A novel Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to…
DNA bending on length scales shorter than a persistence length plays an integral role in the translation of genetic information from DNA to cellular function. Quantitative experimental studies of these biological systems have led to a…
The wormlike chain (WLC) model of DNA bending accurately reproduces single-molecule force-extension profiles of long (kilobase) chains. These bending statistics over large scales do not, however, establish a unique microscopic model for…
Cyclization of DNA with sticky ends is commonly used to construct DNA minicircles and to measure DNA bendability. The cyclization probability of short DNA (< 150 bp) has a strong length dependence, but how it depends on the rotational…
Classical algorithms in numerical analysis for numerical integration (quadrature/cubature) follow the principle of approximate and integrate: the integrand is approximated by a simple function (e.g. a polynomial), which is then integrated…
Diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) simulations for fermions are becoming the standard to provide high quality reference data in systems that are too large to be investigated via quantum chemical approaches. DMC with the fixed-node approximation…
The sequence-dependent elasticity of double-helical DNA on a nm length scale can be captured by the rigid base-pair model, whose strains are the relative position and orientation of adjacent base-pairs. Corresponding elastic potentials have…
The flexibility of short DNA chains is investigated via computation of the average correlation function between dimers which defines the persistence length. Path integration techniques have been applied to confine the phase space available…
Monte Carlo simulations of coarse-grained polymers provide a useful tool to deepen the understanding of conformational and statistical properties of polymers both in physical as well as in biological systems. In this study we sample compact…
Single-molecule experiments in which force is applied to DNA or RNA molecules have enabled important discoveries of nucleic acid properties and nucleic acid-enzyme interactions. These experiments rely on a model of the polymer…
The twisting deformation of mechanically stretched DNA molecules is studied by a coarse grained Hamiltonian model incorporating the fundamental interactions that stabilize the double helix and accounting for the radial and angular base pair…
We give a detailed description of the so-called Polynomial Hybrid Monte Carlo (PHMC) algorithm. The effects of the correction factor, which is introduced to render the algorithm exact, are discussed, stressing their relevance for the…