Related papers: Topological Catenation-induced Pore Size in 2D Oly…
Molecular topology of polymers plays a key role in determining their physical properties. We studied herein the topological effects on the static and dynamic properties of a 2D catenated network of DNA rings called a kinetoplast.…
The kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) is the archetype of a two-dimensional Olympic network, composed of thousands of DNA minicircles and found in the mitochondrion of certain parasites. The evolution, replication and self-assembly of this structure…
The Kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) is a two-dimensional Olympic-ring-like network of mutually linked 2.5 kb-long DNA minicircles found in certain parasites called Trypanosomes. Understanding the self-assembly and replication of this structure are…
Capturing the physical organisation and dynamics of genomic regions is one of the major open challenges in biology. The kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) is a topologically complex genome, made by thousands of DNA (mini and maxi) circles interlinked…
From social interactions to the human brain, higher-order networks are key to describe the underlying network geometry and topology of many complex systems. While it is well known that network structure strongly affects its function, the…
Understanding conformational change is crucial for programming and controlling the function of many mechanical systems such as allosteric enzymes and tunable metamaterials. Of particular interest is the relationship between the network…
We study theoretically the replication of Kinetoplast DNA consisting of several thousands separate mini-circles found in organisms of the class Kinetoplastida. When the cell is not actively dividing these are topologically connected in a…
Advances in controlled polymerization have enabled the synthesis of mechanically interlocked polymers like molecular knots and linear[n]catenane. These aesthetic macromolecules with unique topological constraints in the form of mechanical…
Simulations of knotting and unknotting in polymers or other filaments rely on random processes to facilitate topological changes. Here we introduce a method of \textit{topological steering} to determine the optimal pathway by which a…
Understanding the relationship between the microscopic structure and topology of a material and its macroscopic properties is a fundamental challenge across a wide range of systems. Here, we investigate the viscoelasticity of DNA nanostar…
Understanding the biological function of knots in proteins and their folding process is an open and challenging question in biology. Recent studies classify the topology and geometry of knotted proteins by analysing the distribution of a…
A complexity-theoretic approach to studying biological networks is proposed. A simple graph representation is used where molecules (DNA, RNA, proteins and chemicals) are vertices and relations between them are directed and signed…
The 3D folding of a mammalian gene can be studied by a polymer model, where the chromatin fibre is represented by a semiflexible polymer which interacts with multivalent proteins, representing complexes of DNA-binding transcription factors…
Molecular networks guide the biochemistry of a living cell on multiple levels: its metabolic and signalling pathways are shaped by the network of interacting proteins, whose production, in turn, is controlled by the genetic regulatory…
Approximately 1% of the known protein structures display knotted configurations in their native fold but their function is not understood. It has been speculated that the entanglement may inhibit mechanical protein unfolding or transport,…
Recent studies classify the topology of proteins by analysing the distribution of their projections using knotoids. The approximation of this distribution depends on the number of projection directions that are sampled. Here we investigate…
Understanding and controlling the rheology of polymeric complex fluids that are pushed out-of-equilibrium is a fundamental problem in both industry and biology. For example, to package, repair, and replicate DNA, cells use enzymes to…
Ionic transport in nano- to sub-nano-scale pores is highly dependent on translocation barriers and potential wells. These features in the free-energy landscape are primarily the result of ion dehydration and electrostatic interactions. For…
We present an analysis of the role of global topology on the structural stability of folded proteins in thermal equilibrium with a heat bath. For a large class of single domain proteins, we compute the harmonic spectrum within the Gaussian…
In this paper we study the role of topology in DNA gel electrophoresis experiments via molecular dynamics simulations. The gel is modelled as a 3D array of obstacles from which half edges are removed at random with probability p, thereby…