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The mechanical properties of molecules are today captured by single molecule manipulation experiments, so that polymer features are tested at a nanometric scale. Yet devising mathematical models to get further insight beyond the commonly…
Solid state nanopores have emerged as powerful tools for single-molecule sensing, yet the rapid uncontrolled translocation of the molecule through the pore remains a key limitation. We have previously demonstrated that an active…
Nanoparticles tethered with DNA strands are promising building blocks for bottom-up nanotechnology, and a theoretical understanding is important for future development. Here we build on approaches developed in polymer physics to provide…
The spatial organization of DNA involves DNA loop extrusion and the formation of protein-DNA condensates. While the significance of each process is increasingly recognized, their interplay remains unexplored. Using molecular dynamics…
This paper introduces the use of cable dynamics models as a means to explore the mechanics of DNA on long-length scales. It is on these length scales that DNA forms twisted and curved three-dimensional shapes known as supercoils and loops.…
DNA minicircles are closed double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) fragments that have been demonstrated to be an important experimental tool to understand supercoiled, or stressed, DNA mechanics, such as nucleosome positioning and DNA-protein…
We calculate the equation of state of DNA under tension for the case that the DNA features loops. Such loops occur transiently during DNA condensation in the presence of multivalent ions or sliding cationic protein linkers. The…
The thermodynamic properties of DNA circular molecules are investigated by a new path integral computational method which treats in the real space the fundamental forces stabilizing the molecule. The base pair and stacking contributions to…
Because of the double-helical structure of DNA, in which two strands of complementary nucleotides intertwine around each other, a covalently closed DNA molecule with no interruptions in either strand can be viewed as two interlocked…
The formation of DNA loops by proteins and protein complexes is ubiquitous to many fundamental cellular processes, including transcription, recombination, and replication. Here we review recent advances in understanding the properties of…
We introduce an analytical method to generate the pathway of a closed protein-bound DNA minicircle. This is a general method which can be used to connect any two open curves with well defined mathematical definitions as well as pairs of…
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…
To study the elastic properties of rod-like DNA nanostructures, we perform long simulations of these structure using the oxDNA coarse-grained model. By analysing the fluctuations in these trajectories we obtain estimates of the bend and…
Recent experiments demonstrated that knots in single DNA strands can be formed by hydrodynamic compression in a nanochannel. In this letter, we further elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms by carrying out a compression experiment…
DNA nanoparticles with three-fold coordination have been observed to self-assemble in experiment into a network equivalent to the hexagonal (6.6.6) tiling, and a network equivalent to the 4.8.8 Archimedean tiling. Both networks are built…
A theory of the unzipping of double-stranded (ds) DNA is presented, and is compared to recent micromanipulation experiments. It is shown that the interactions which stabilize the double helix and the elastic rigidity of single strands (ss)…
We review statistical-mechanical theories of single-molecule micromanipulation experiments on nucleic acids. First, models for describing polymer elasticity are introduced. We then review how these models are used to interpret…
Solid-state nanopores are promising tools for single molecule detection of both DNA and proteins. In this study, we investigate the patterns of ionic current blockades as DNA translocates into or out of the geometric confinement of such…
Protein-DNA complexes with loops play a fundamental role in a wide variety of cellular processes, ranging from the regulation of DNA transcription to telomere maintenance. As ubiquitous as they are, their precise in vivo properties and…
The symmetries of the DNA double helix require a new term in its linear response to stress: the coupling between twist and stretch. Recent experiments with torsionally-constrained single molecules give the first direct measurement of this…