Related papers: Packaging stiff polymers in small containers: A mo…
The ability of double-stranded DNA or RNA to locally melt and form kinks leads to strong non-linear elasticity effects that qualitatively affect their packing in confined spaces. Using analytical theory and numerical simulation we show that…
The coat proteins of many viruses spontaneously form icosahedral capsids around nucleic acids or other polymers. Elucidating the role of the packaged polymer in capsid formation could promote biomedical efforts to block viral replication…
Entangled networks of stiff biopolymers exhibit complex dynamic response, emerging from the topological constraints that neighboring filaments impose upon each other. We propose a class of reference models for entanglement dynamics of stiff…
Transport of tracer particles through mesh-like environments such as biological hydrogels and polymer matrices is ubiquitous in nature. These tracers could be passive, such as colloids or active (self-propelled), such as synthetic…
The packaging of genetic material within a protein shell, called the capsid, marks a pivotal step in the life cycle of numerous single-stranded RNA viruses. Understanding how hundreds, or even thousands, of proteins assemble around the…
The phase behaviour of a single large semiflexible polymer immersed in a suspension of spherical particles is studied. All interactions are simple excluded volume interactions and the diameter of the spherical particles is an order of…
Loop formation in long molecules occurs many places in nature, from solutions of carbon nanotubes to polymers inside a cell. In this article, we review theoretical studies of the static and dynamic properties of polymer loops. For example,…
If a collection of identical particles is poured into a container, different shapes will fill to different densities. But what is the shape that fills a container as close as possible to a pre-specified, desired density? We demonstrate a…
Motivated by recent nanofluidics experiments, we use Brownian dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations to study the conformation, organization and dynamics of two polymer chains confined to a single box-like cavity. The polymers are modeled as…
From understanding the sand on the beach to the foam on your beer, soft sphere simulations have been crucial to the study of the amorphous world around us. However, many of the materials we interact with on a daily basis aren't comprised of…
A solid-state nanopore can electrophoretically capture a DNA molecule and pull it through in a folded configuration. The resulting ionic current signal indicates where along its length the DNA was captured. A statistical study using an 8 nm…
Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines. Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights into the structure…
Physically confining polymers into nanoscale pores induces significant changes in their dynamics. Although different results on the effect of confinement on the dynamics of polymers have been reported, changes in the segmental mobility of…
The dynamics of polymer translocation through a pore has been the subject of recent theoretical and experimental works. We have considered theoretical estimates and performed computer simulations to understand the mechanism of DNA uptake…
Polymers are a primary building block in many biomaterials, often interacting with anisotropic backgrounds. While previous studies have considered polymer dynamics within nematic solvents, rarely are the the effects of anisotropic viscosity…
Confined thin structures are ubiquitous in nature. Spatial and length constraints have led to a number of novel packing strategies at both the micro-scale, as when DNA packages inside a capsid, and the macro-scale, seen in plant root…
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…
In the presented work we study, by means of numerical simulations, the behaviour of a suspension of active ring polymers in the bulk and under lateral confinement. When changing the separation between the confining planes and the polymers'…
Fundamental understanding of the effect of microscopic parameters on the dynamics of probe particles in different complex environments has wide implications. Examples include diffusion of proteins in the biological hydrogels, porous media,…
The folding transition of biopolymers from the coil to compact structures has attracted wide research interest in the past and is well studied in polymer physics. Recent seminal works on DNA in confined devices have shown that these long…