Related papers: Modelling Protein Target-Search in Human Chromosom…
Statistical-mechanical lattice models for protein-DNA binding are well established as a method to describe complex ligand binding equilibriums measured in vitro with purified DNA and protein components. Recently, a new field of applications…
The mechanisms by which a protein's 3D structure can be determined based on its amino acid sequence have long been one of the key mysteries of biophysics. Often simplistic models, such as those derived from geometric constraints, capture…
Many fundamental biological processes are regulated by protein-DNA complexes called {\it synaptosomes}, which possess multiple interaction sites. Despite the critical importance of synaptosomes, the mechanisms of their formation remain not…
Proteins can locate their specific targets on DNA up to two orders of magnitude faster than the Smoluchowski three-dimensional diffusion rate. This happens due to non-specific adsorption of proteins to DNA and subsequent one-dimensional…
Specific binding of proteins to DNA is one of the most common ways in which gene expression is controlled. Although general rules for the DNA-protein recognition can be derived, the ambiguous and complex nature of this mechanism precludes a…
Non protein coding regions of the human genome contain many complex patterns which regulate the cellular activity. Studying the human genome is limited by the lack of understanding of its features and their complex interactions. However,…
It is known since the early days of molecular biology that proteins locate their specific targets on DNA up to two orders of magnitude faster than the Smoluchowski 3D diffusion rate. It was the idea due to Delbruck that they are…
DNA-interacting proteins have roles multiple processes, many operating as molecular machines which undergo dynamic metastable transitions to bring about their biological function. To fully understand this molecular heterogeneity, DNA and…
We present a theoretical model of facilitated diffusion of proteins in the cell nucleus. This model, which takes into account the successive binding/unbinding events of proteins to DNA, relies on a fractal description of the chromatin which…
Modeling of DNA-protein interactions is a complex process involving many important time and length scales. This can be facilitated through the use of coarse-grained models which reduce the number of degrees of freedom and allow efficient…
We study a model for a protein searching for a target, using facilitated diffusion, on a DNA molecule confined in a finite volume. The model includes three distinct pathways for facilitated diffusion: (a) sliding - in which the protein…
Vital biological processes such as genome repair require fast and efficient binding of selected proteins to specific target sites on DNA. Here we propose an active target search mechanism based on "chromophoresis", the dynamics of…
We study the target searching on the DNA for proteins in the presence of non-constant drift and non-Gaussian $\alpha$-stable L\'evy fluctuations. The target searching is realized by the facilitated diffusion process. The existing works are…
Strong experimental and theoretical evidence shows that transcription factors and other specific DNA-binding proteins find their sites using a two-mode search: alternating between 3D diffusion through the cell and 1D sliding along the DNA.…
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…
Initial protein structural comparisons were sequence-based. Since amino acids that are distant in the sequence can be close in the 3-dimensional (3D) structure, 3D contact approaches can complement sequence approaches. Traditional 3D…
Proteins are known to locate their specific targets on DNA up to two orders of magnitude faster than predicted by the Smoluchowski three-dimensional diffusion rate. One of the mechanisms proposed to resolve this discrepancy is termed…
We study the impact of DNA coiling on the search rate of proteins moving along the DNA contour interspersed by three-dimensional (3D) bulk excursions. When the DNA is coiled proteins performing short 3D hops along a DNA segment can be…
We consider the task of detecting regulatory elements in the human genome directly from raw DNA. Past work has focused on small snippets of DNA, making it difficult to model long-distance dependencies that arise from DNA's 3-dimensional…
In gene expression, various kinds of proteins need to bind to specific locus of DNA. It is still not clear how these proteins find their target locus. In this study, the mean first-passage time (FPT) of protein binding to its target locus…