Related papers: Short DNA persistence length in a mesoscopic helic…
A theory is presented of the longitudinal dispersion of DNA under equilibrium confined in a nanochannel. Orientational fluctuations of the DNA chain build up to give rise to substantial fluctuations of the coil in the longitudinal direction…
The free energy of looping DNA by proteins and protein complexes determines to what extent distal DNA sites can affect each other. We inferred its in vivo value through a combined computational-experimental approach for different lengths of…
We present an analytical theory for heteropolymer deformation, as exemplified experimentally by stretching of single protein molecules. Using a mean-field replica theory, we determine phase diagrams for stress-induced unfolding of typical…
The chiral nature of DNA plays a crucial role in cellular processes. Here we use magnetic tweezers to explore one of the signatures of this chirality, the coupling between stretch and twist deformations. We show that the extension of a…
Simple elastic network models of DNA were developed to reveal the structure-dynamics relationships for several nucleotide sequences. First, we propose a simple all-atom elastic network model of DNA that can explain the profiles of…
We investigate the statistical mechanics of a torsionally constrained polymer. The polymer is modeled as a fluctuating rod with bend stiffness A kT and twist stiffness C kT. In such a model, thermal bend fluctuations couple geometrically to…
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…
The influence of tension on DNA looping has been studied both experimentally and theoretically in the past. However, different theoretical models have yielded different predictions, leaving uncertainty about their validity. We briefly…
We present a simple model which describes elastic response of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) to stretching, including the regime of very high force (up to 1000 pN). ssDNA is modelled as a discreet persistent chain, whose ground state is a…
The competition between toroidal and rod-like conformations as possible ground states for DNA condensation is studied as a function of the stiffness, the length of the DNA and the form of the long-range interactions between neighboring…
As a key molecule of Life, Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the focus of numbers of investigations with the help of biological, chemical and physical techniques. From a physical point of view, both experimental and theoretical works have…
The theory of elastic rods can be used to describe certain geometric and topological properties of the DNA molecules. A similar effective field theory approach was previously suggested to describe the conformations and dynamics of proteins.…
We introduce a coarse-grained rigid nucleotide model of DNA that reproduces the basic thermodynamics of short strands: duplex hybridization, single-stranded stacking and hairpin formation, and also captures the essential structural…
The temperature dependence of DNA flexibility is studied in the presence of stretching and unzipping forces. Two classes of models are considered. In one case the origin of elasticity is entropic due to the polymeric correlations, and in…
The percentage and sequence of AT and GC base pairs and charges on the DNA backbone contribute significantly to the stiffness of DNA. This elastic property of DNA also changes with small interacting ligands. The single-molecule force…
The dynamic behavior of semi-dilute polymer solutions is governed by an interplay between solvent quality, concentration, molecular weight, and flow type. Semi-dilute solutions are characterized by large fluctuations in concentration,…
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 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…
We study statistical properties of DNA chains of thirteen microbial complete genomes. We find that the power spectrum of several of the sequences studied flattens off in the low frequency limit. This implies that the correlation length in…
Modern genomics experiments measure functional behaviors for many thousands of DNA sequences. We suggest that, especially when these sequences are chosen at random, it is natural to compute correlation functions between sequences and…