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We report Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of a generic hydrophobic nanopore connecting two reservoirs which are initially at different Na+ concentrations, as in a biological cell. The nanopore is impermeable to water under equilibrium…
Eukaryotic DNA is packaged into chromatin: one-dimensional arrays of nucleosomes separated by stretches of linker DNA are folded into 30-nm chromatin fibers which in turn form higher-order structures. Each nucleosome, the fundamental unit…
Protein nanoparticles play pivotal roles in many areas of bionanotechnology, including drug delivery, vaccination and diagnostics. These technologies require control over the distinct particle morphologies that protein nanocontainers can…
We show that the injection of polymer chains into nanochannels becomes easier as the channel becomes narrower. This counter intuitive result arises because of a decrease in the diffusive time scale of the chains with increasing confinement.…
The conformational behavior of a coarse-grained finite polymer chain near an attractive spherical surface was investigated by means of multicanonical Monte Carlo computer simulations. In a detailed analysis of canonical equilibrium data…
We have studied structure formation in a confined block copolymer melt by means of dynamic density functional theory (DDFT). The confinement is two-dimensional, and the confined geometry is that of a cylindrical nanopore. Although the…
Nucleation processes are at the heart of a large number of phenomena, from cloud formation to protein crystallization. A recently emerging area where nucleation is highly relevant is the initiation of filamentous protein self-assembly, a…
The effect of molecule size (excluded volume) and the range of interaction on the surface tension, phase diagram and nucleation properties of a model globular protein is investigated using a combinations of Monte Carlo simulations and…
We study translocation dynamics of a driven compressible semi-flexible chain consisting of alternate blocks of stiff ($S$) and flexible ($F$) segments of size $m$ and $n$ respectively for different chain length $N$ in two dimension (2D).…
Using a simple three-dimensional lattice copolymer model and Monte Carlo dynamics, we study the collapse and folding of protein-like heteropolymers. The polymers are 27 monomers long and consist of two monomer types. Although these chains…
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
We study the thermodynamic properties of a semiflexible polymer confined inside strips of widths L<=9 defined on a square lattice. The polymer is modeled as a self-avoiding walk and a short range interaction between the monomers and the…
There are many proteins or protein complexes which have multiple DNA binding domains. This allows them to bind to multiple points on a DNA molecule (or chromatin fibre) at the same time. There are also many proteins which have been found to…
Single three dimensional polymers confined to a slab, i.e. to the region between two parallel plane walls, are studied by Monte Carlo simulations. They are described by $N$-step walks on a simple cubic lattice confined to the region $1 \le…
The type 1 pilus is a bacterial filament consisting of a long coiled proteic chain of subunits joined together by non-covalent bonding between complementing $\beta$-strands. Its strength and structural stability are critical for its…
This paper builds upon the fundamental work of Niwa et al. [34], which provides the unique possibility to analyze the relative aggregation/folding propensity of the elements of the entire Escherichia coli (E. coli) proteome in a cell-free…
We study the conformational properties of complex polymer macromolecules, consisting in general of $n$ subsequently connected chains (blocks) of different lengths and distinct chemical structure. Depending on the solvent conditions, the…
We propose a new toy model of a heteropolymer chain capable of forming planar secondary structures typical for RNA molecules. In this model the sequential intervals between neighboring monomers along a chain are considered as quenched…
We consider the translocation dynamics of a polymer chain forced through a nanopore by an external force on its head monomer on the trans side. For a proper theoretical treatment we generalize the iso-flux tension propagation (IFTP) theory…
In biology, there are several processes in which unfolded protein chains are transported along narrow-tube channels. Normally, without such a severe configurational constraint, unfolded polypeptides would not bind to each other. However,…