Related papers: Ring closure in actin polymers
We show that Kramers rate theory gives a straightforward, accurate estimate of the closing time $\tau_c$ of a semiflexible polymer that is valid in cases of physical interest. The calculation also reveals how the time scales of chain…
Ring, or cyclic, polymers have unique properties compared to linear polymers, due to their topologically closed structure that has no beginning or end. Experimental measurements on molecular ring polymers are challenging due to their…
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 fracture and severing of polymer chains plays a critical role in the failure of fibrous materials and the regulated turnover of intracellular filaments. Using continuum wormlike chain models, we investigate the fracture of semiflexible…
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…
We review the physical properties of macromolecular networks, consisting of semiflexible polymers such as actin. We start by giving a theoretical analysis of the conformational statistics and mechanical response of single filaments.…
The properties of a semiflexible polymer with fixed ends exposed to oscillatory shear flow are investigated by simulations. The two-dimensionally confined polymer is modeled as a linear bead-spring chain, and the interaction with the fluid…
We consider an inextensible, semiflexible polymer or worm-like chain which is confined in the transverse direction by a parabolic potential and subject to a longitudinal force at the ends, so that the polymer is stretched out and…
Stochastic simulations are used to characterize the knotting distributions of random ring polymers confined in spheres of various radii. The approach is based on the use of multiple Markov chains and reweighting techniques, combined with…
Brownian motion and viscoelasticity of semiflexible polymers is a subject that has been studied for many years. Still, rigorous analysis has been hindered due to the difficulty in handling the constraint that polymer chains cannot be…
A quantitative theory of the buckling of a worm like chain based on a semi-classical approximation of the partition function is presented. The contribution of thermal fluctuations to the force-extension relation that allows to go beyond the…
We elucidate the elastic behavior of a wormlike chain in 3D under compression and provide exact solutions for the experimentally accessible force-extension relation in terms of generalized spheroidal wave functions. In striking contrast to…
The dynamics of loop formation by linear polymer chains has been a topic of several theoretical/experimental studies. Formation of loops and their opening are key processes in many important biological processes. Loop formation in flexible…
We use the worm-like chain model to analytically calculate the linear response of a grafted semiflexible polymer to a uniform force field. The result is a function of the bending stiffness, the temperature, the total contour length, and the…
Unconcatenated, unknotted polymer rings in the melt are subject to strong interactions with neighboring chains due to the presence of topological constraints. We study this by computer simulation using the bond-fluctuation algorithm for…
We analyze static properties of a strongly confined semiflexible polymer, i.e. either trapped in a closed space or compressed by external forces, in an athermal solvent. Like a flexible polymer case, we can resort to an analogy with the…
Every smooth closed curve can be represented by a suitable Fourier sum. We show that the ensemble of curves generated by randomly chosen Fourier coefficients with amplitudes inversely proportional to spatial frequency (with a smooth…
Quasi-elastic light scattering (QELS) is applied to investigate the effect of the tropomyosin/troponin complex (Tm/Tn) on the stiffness of actin filaments. The importance of hydrodynamic screening in semidilute solutions is demonstrated. A…
We investigate theoretically the effect of polymer tension on the collective behavior of reversibly binding cross-links. For this purpose, we employ a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains aligned in parallel by a tensile force, with…
Polymer models are used to describe chromatin, which can be folded at different spatial scales by binding molecules. By folding, chromatin generates loops of various sizes. We present here a randomly cross-linked (RCL) polymer model, where…