Related papers: DNA supercoiling in bacteria: state of play and ch…
This work addresses the question of the interplay of DNA demixing and supercoiling in bacterial cells. Demixing of DNA from other globular macromolecules results from the overall repulsion between all components of the system and leads to…
DNA supercoiling, the under or overwinding of DNA, is a key physical mechanism both participating to compaction of bacterial genomes and making genomic sequences adopt various structural forms. DNA supercoiling may lead to the formation of…
DNA supercoils are generated in genome regulation processes such as transcription and replication, and provide mechanical feedback to such processes. Under tension, DNA supercoil can present a coexistence state of plectonemic (P) and…
The unconstrained genomic DNA of bacteria forms a coil, which volume exceeds 1000 times the volume of the cell. Since prokaryotes lack a membrane-bound nucleus, in sharp contrast with eukaryotes, the DNA may consequently be expected to…
We investigate the measurement of DNA supercoiling density ($\sigma$) along chromosomes using interaction frequencies between DNA and DNA-anchored clusters of proteins. Specifically, we show how the physics of DNA supercoiling leads, in…
Topology affects physical and biological properties of DNA and impacts fundamental cellular processes, such as gene expression, genome replication, chromosome structure and segregation. In all organisms DNA topology is carefully modulated…
This paper introduces the use of cable dynamics models as a means to explore the mechanics of DNA on long-length scales. It is on these length scales that DNA forms twisted and curved three-dimensional shapes known as supercoils and loops.…
A unified model is constructed to study the recently observed DNA entropic elasticity, cooperative extensibility, and supercoiling property. With the introduction of a new structural parameter (the folding angle $\phi$), bending…
Bacterial genomes have been shown to be partitioned into several kilobases long chromosomal domains that are topologically independent from each other, meaning that change of DNA superhelicity in one domain does not propagate to neighbors.…
DNA is increasingly employed for bio and nanotechnology thanks to its exquisite versatility and designability. Most of its use is limited to linearised and torsionally relaxed DNA but non-trivial architectures and torsionally constrained --…
Recent experimental and theoretical approaches have attempted to quantify the physical organization (compaction and geometry) of the bacterial chromosome with its complement of proteins (the nucleoid). The genomic DNA exists in a complex…
The interplay between bacterial chromosome organization and functions such as transcription and replication can be studied in increasing detail using novel experimental techniques. Interpreting the resulting quantitative data, however, can…
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…
Recent experiments have been able to visualise chromosome organization in fast-growing E.coli cells. However, the mechanism underlying the spatio-temporal organization remains poorly understood. We propose that the DNA adopts a specific…
As a key molecule of Life, Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the focus of numbers of investigations with the help of biological, chemical and physical techniques. From a physical point of view, both experimental and theoretical works have…
We study the effect of transcription on the kinetics of DNA supercoiling in 3D by means of Brownian dynamics simulations of a single nucleotide resolution coarse-grained model for double stranded DNA. By accounting for the action of a…
The binding of proteins onto DNA contributes to the shaping and packaging of genome as well as to the expression of specific genetic messages. With a view to understanding the interplay between the presence of proteins and the deformation…
We propose that supercoiling energizes double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) so as to facilitate thermal fluctuations to an unzipped state. We support this with a model of two elastic rods coupled via forces that represent base pair interactions.…
The formation of DNA loops by proteins and protein complexes that bind at distal DNA sites plays a central role in many cellular processes, such as transcription, recombination, and replication. Here we review the basic thermodynamic…
The double-helical structure of DNA results from canonical base pairing and stacking interactions. However, variations from steady-state conformations result from mechanical perturbations in cells. These different topologies have…