Related papers: The nuclear pore complex as an entropic gate: theo…
The tube model is a central concept in polymer physics, and allows to reduce the complex many-filament problem of an entangled polymer solution to a single filament description. We investigate the probability distribution function of…
The eukaryotic cell nucleus harbors the DNA genome that is organized in a dynamic chromatin network and embedded in a viscous crowded fluid. This environment directly affects enzymatic reactions and target search processes that access the…
We present a kinetic model of crystal growth of polymers of finite molecular weight. Experiments help to classify polymer crystallization broadly into two kinetic regimes. One is observed in melts or in high molar mass polymer solutions and…
We present a numerical study of forced polymer translocation by using two separate pore models. Both of them have been extensively used in previous forced translocation studies. We show that variations in the pore model affect the forced…
The ability of eukaryotic cells to squeeze through constrictions is limited by the stiffness of their large and rigid nucleus. However, migrating cells are often able to overcome this limitation and pass through constrictions much smaller…
The structure of a polystyrene matrix filled with tightly cross-linked polystyrene nanoparticles, forming an athermal nanocomposite system, is investigated by means of a Monte Carlo sampling formalism. The polymer chains are represented as…
We investigate the problem of polymer translocation through a nanopore in the absence of an external driving force. To this end, we use the two-dimensional (2D) fluctuating bond model with single-segment Monte Carlo moves. To overcome the…
As proteins typically have charges of around 10, they will interact strongly with charged surfaces. We calculate the electrostatic contribution to the interaction of crystals of protein with charged surfaces. The surfaces repel like-charged…
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in nanopores because such structures show a strong potential for characterizing nanoparticles, proteins, DNA, and even single molecules. These systems have been extensively studied in experiment as…
A kinetic model for the nucleation mechanism of protein folding is proposed. A protein is modeled as a heteropolymer consisting of hydrophobic and hydrophilic beads with equal constant bond lengths and bond angles. The total energy of the…
We investigate the process of biopolymer translocation through a narrow pore using a multiscale approach which explicitly accounts for the hydrodynamic interactions of the molecule with the surrounding solvent. The simulations confirm that…
We model the environment of eukaryotic nuclei by representing macromolecules by only their entropic properties, with globular molecules represented by spherical colloids and flexible molecules by polymers. We put particular focus on…
Polymer translocation through a nanopore in a membrane investigated theoretically. Recent experiments on voltage-driven DNA and RNA translocations through a nanopore indicate that the size and geometry of the pore are important factors in…
Monte Carlo simulations using an explicit solvent model indicate a new pathway for translocation of a polymer chain through a lipid bilayer. We consider a polymer chain composed of repeat units with a given hydrophobicity and a…
We perform extensive Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice model and the Go potential to investigate the existence of folding pathways at the level of contact cluster formation for two native structures with markedly different geometries.…
It has recently been proposed that proteins embedded in lipidic bio-membranes can spontaneously self-organize into stable small clusters, or membrane nano-domains, due to the competition between short-range attractive and longer-range…
Effect of molecular crowding and confinement experienced by protein in the cell during unfolding has been studied by modeling a linear polymer chain on a percolation cluster. It is known that internal structure of the cell changes in time,…
We investigate membrane-mediated interactions between transmembrane proteins using coarse-grained models. We compare the effective potential of mean force (PMF) between two proteins, which are always aligned parallel to the z-axis of the…
We study the conformational properties of complex Gaussian polymers containing $f_c$ linear branches and $f_r$ closed loops, periodically tethered at $n$ branching points to either a linear polymer backbone (generalized bottlebrush…
Shortly after the determination of the first protein x-ray crystal structures, researchers analyzed their cores and reported packing fractions $\phi \approx 0.75$, a value that is similar to close packing equal-sized spheres. A limitation…