Related papers: The dimensionality of a coiled helical coil
Deformations that conserve the parallelism and the distances --between layers, in smectic phases; between columns, in columnar phases-- are commonplace in liquid crystals. The resulting deformed textures have the same mass density as in the…
This article proposes a model including thermal effects for closed supercoiled DNA. Existing models include an elastic rod. Euler's elastica, ideal elastic rods on a plane, have only two kinds of closed shapes, the circle and a…
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 --…
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…
Nucleosome core particle is a dynamic structure -- DNA may transiently peel off the histone octamer surface due to thermal fluctuations or the action of chromatin remodeling enzymes. Partial DNA unwrapping enables easier access of…
The base pair fluctuations and helix untwisting are examined for a circular molecule. A realistic mesoscopic model including twisting degrees of freedom and bending of the molecular axis is proposed. The computational method, based on path…
DNA-spools, structures in which DNA is wrapped and helically coiled onto itself or onto a protein core are ubiquitous in nature. We develop a general theory describing the non-equilibrium behavior of DNA-spools under linear tension. Two…
Nucleosomes organize the folding of DNA into chromatin and significantly influence transcription, replication, regulation and repair. All atom molecular dynamics simulations of a nucleosome and of its 146 basepairs of DNA free in solution…
The strength of the spin-orbit interaction relevant to transport in a low dimensional structure depends critically on the relative geometrical arrangement of current carrying orbitals. Recent tight-binding orbital models for spin transport…
The twisting deformation of mechanically stretched DNA molecules is studied by a coarse grained Hamiltonian model incorporating the fundamental interactions that stabilize the double helix and accounting for the radial and angular base pair…
All known life forms are based upon a hierarchy of interwoven feedback loops, operating over a cascade of space, time and energy scales. Among the most basic loops are those connecting DNA and proteins. For example, in genetic networks, DNA…
Chromatin is a complex of DNA, RNA and proteins whose primary function is to package genomic DNA into the tight confines of a cell nucleus. A fundamental repeating unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, an octamer of histone proteins around…
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…
Nucleic acids are highly deformable helical molecules constantly stretched, twisted and bent in their biological functioning. Single molecule experiments have shown that double stranded (ds)-RNA and standard ds-DNA have opposite…
A dynamical model is presented for chiral change in DNA molecules. The model is an extension of the conventional elastic model which incorporates the structure of base pairs and uses a spinor representation for the DNA configuration…
In many organisms, homologous (or repetitive) chromosomal regions can associate or/and undergo concerted epigenetic changes in the absence of DNA breakage and recombination. The direct specific pairing of DNA duplexes with similar…
The equilibrium structure of a Dinucleosome is studied using an elastic model that takes into account the force and torque balance conditions. Using the proper boundary conditions, it is found that the conformational energy of the problem…
Although mechanical properties of DNA are well characterized at the kilo base-pair range, a number of recent experiments have suggested that DNA is more flexible at shorter length scales, which correspond to the regime that is crucial for…
Using an exact solution for the pair interaction potential, we show that long, rigid, chiral molecules with helical surface charge patterns have a preferential interaxial angle ~((RH)^1/2)/L, where L is the length of the molecules, R is the…
The scaling properties of DNA knots of different complexities were studied by atomic force microscope. Following two different protocols DNA knots are adsorbed onto a mica surface in regimes of (i) strong binding, that induces a kinetic…