Related papers: Overtwisting induces polygonal shapes in bent DNA

The thermodynamical stability of DNA minicircles is investigated by means of path integral techniques. Hydrogen bonds between base pairs on complementary strands can be broken by thermal fluctuations and temporary fluctuational openings…

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…

We propose a stochastic model for gene transcription coupled to DNA supercoiling, where we incorporate the experimental observation that polymerases create supercoiling as they unwind the DNA helix, and that these enzymes bind more…

While slowly turning the ends of a single molecule of DNA at constant applied force, a discontinuity was recently observed at the supercoiling transition, when a small plectoneme is suddenly formed. This can be understood as an abrupt…

DNA looping is important in DNA condensation and regulation. One method for forming a DNA loop, thought to be used by the condensing agent protamine, is bind-and-bend. In bind-and-bend, molecules bind all along the DNA, each creating a bend…

Plectonemes are intertwined helically looped domains which form when a DNA molecule is supercoiled, i.e. over- or under-wounded. They are ubiquitous in cellular DNA and their physical properties have attracted significant interest both from…

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…

Circular double stranded DNA has different topological states which are defined by their linking numbers. Equilibrium distribution of linking numbers can be obtained by closing a linear DNA into a circle by ligase. Using Monte Carlo…

DNA is structurally and mechanically altered by the binding of intercalator molecules. Intercalation strongly affects the force-extension behavior of DNA, in particular the overstretching transition. We present a statistical model that…

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…

DNA flexibility is a key determinant of biological function, from nucleosome positioning to transcriptional regulation, motivating a direct measurement of the bend-torque response of individual DNA molecules. In this work, DNA bending is…

We present a self-contained theory for the mechanical response of DNA in single molecule experiments. Our model is based on a 1D continuum description of the DNA molecule and accounts both for its elasticity and for DNA-DNA electrostatic…

For short DNA molecules in crowded environments, we evaluate macroscopic parameters such as the average end-to-end distance and the twist conformation by tuning the strength of the site specific confinement driven by the crowders. The…

Snapping of a slender structure is utilized in a wide range of natural and man-made systems, mostly to achieve rapid movement without relying on muscle-like elements. Although several mechanisms for elastic energy storage and rapid release…

We show how coarse-grained modelling combined with umbrella sampling using distance-based order parameters can be applied to compute the free-energy landscapes associated with mechanical deformations of large DNA nanostructures. We…

The transport of macromolecules, such as DNA, through the cytoskeleton is critical to wide-ranging cellular processes from cytoplasmic streaming to transcription. The rigidity and steric hindrances imparted by the network of filaments…

It is a standard exercise in mechanical engineering to infer the external forces and torques on a body from its static shape and known elastic properties. Here we apply this kind of analysis to distorted double-helical DNA in complexes with…

Biological filaments such as DNA or bacterial flagella are typically curved in their natural states. To elucidate the interplay of viscous drag, twisting, and bending in the overdamped dynamics of such filaments, we compute the steady-state…

Cooperativity plays an important role in the action of proteins bound to DNA. A simple, mechanical mechanism for cooperativity, in the form of a tension-mediated interaction between proteins bound to DNA at two different locations is…

We observe regular patterns emerging across multiple length scales with high-concentration DNA solutions in microfluidic pillar arrays at low Reynolds numbers and high Deborah. Interacting vortices between pillars lead to long-range order…