Related papers: Strongly bent double-stranded DNA: reconciling the…
We demonstrate the use of multiscale polymer modelling to quantitatively predict DNA linear dichroism (LD) in shear flow. LD is the difference in absorption of light polarised along two perpendicular axes, and has long been applied to study…
DNA supercoiling is central to many fundamental processes of living organisms. Its average level along the chromosome and over time reflects the dynamic equilibrium of opposite activities of topoisomerases, which are required to relax…
We study conformational properties of diluted dumbbell polymers which consist of two rings that are attached to both ends of a linear spacer segment by using analytical methods of field theory and bead-spring coarse-grained molecular…
The theoretical study of deformability of special sequence of DNA double helix TATA-box is presentated. The paper elaborates on the mechanisms of abnormal deformation of DNA TATA-box double helix that cannot be explained using the standard…
Advances in DNA nanotechnology have stimulated the search for simple motifs that can be used to control the properties of DNA nanostructures. One such motif, which has been used extensively in structures such as polyhedral cages,…
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…
Cells deploy robust mechanisms to repair DNA damage, safeguarding genomic stability and cellular health, but the physical principles underlying these processes remain incompletely understood. Experiments show \emph{in vitro} that upon a DNA…
Analogous to a model that predicts the linear scaling of the binding energy of a nucleus from the number of nucleons, a simple model was developed to account for the observed linear variation of the quantum-chemically computed total…
DNA is now firmly established as a versatile and robust platform for achieving synthetic nanostructures. While the folding of single molecules into complex structures is routinely achieved through engineering basepair sequences, much less…
The last several decades have seen significant advances in the theoretical modeling of materials within the fields of solid-state physics and materials science, but many methods commonly applied to this problem struggle to capture strong…
It is well known that the structural deformations (stressed states) of DNA molecule play a crucial role in its biological functions including gene expression. For instance, looping in DNA (often mediated by protein binding) is a crucial…
Helical molecules change their twist number under the effect of a mechanical load. We study the twist-stretch relation for a set of short DNA molecules modeled by a mesoscopic Hamiltonian. Finite temperature path integral techniques are…
Base pair mismatch can relieve mechanical stress in highly strained DNA molecules, but how it affects their kinetic stability is not known. Using single-molecule Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), we measured the lifetimes of…
Mechanical properties of nucleic acids play an important role in many biological processes which often involve physical deformations of these molecules. At sufficiently long length scales (say above $\sim 20-30$ base pairs) the mechanics of…
We study DNA denaturation by integrating elasticity -- as described by the Gaussian network model -- with bond binding energies, distinguishing between different base-pair and stacking energies. We use exact calculation, within the model,…
The thermally induced denaturation of DNA in the presence of attractive solid surface is studied. The two strands of DNA are modeled via two coupled flexible chains without volume interactions. If the two strands are adsorbed on the…
The Poland-Scheraga model for DNA denaturation, besides playing a central role in applications, has been widely studied in the physical and mathematical literature over the past decades. More recently a natural generalization has been…
We use an elastic rod model with contact to study the extension versus rotation diagrams of single supercoiled DNA molecules. We reproduce quantitatively the supercoiling response of overtwisted DNA and, using experimental data, we get an…
DNA loop formation is one of several mechanisms used by organisms to regulate genes. The free energy of forming a loop is an important factor in determining whether the associated gene is switched on or off. In this paper we use an elastic…
The issue of the nucleation and slow closure mechanisms of non superhelical stress-induced denaturation bubbles in DNA is tackled using coarse-grained MetaDynamics and Brownian simulations. A minimal mesoscopic model is used where the…