Related papers: Mechanically probing the folding pathway of single…
The folding of biological macromolecules is a fundamental process of which we lack a full comprehension. Mostly studied in proteins and RNA, single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) also folds, at physiological salt conditions, by forming non-specific…
Using a Brownian dynamics simulation, we numerically studied the interaction of DNA with histone and proposed an octamer-rotation model to describe the process of nucleosome formation. Nucleosome disruption under stretching was also…
The internal dynamics of strongly interacting systems and that of biomolecules such as proteins display several important analogies, despite the huge difference in their characteristic energy and length scales. For example, in all such…
Recent advances in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and single molecule technologies make it possible to extract free energy differences from irreversible work measurements in pulling experiments. To date, free energy recovery has been…
We study the indentation of a free-standing lipid membrane suspended over a nanopore on a hydrophobic substrate by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We find that in the course of indentation, the membrane bends at the point of…
One of the most intriguing results of single molecule experiments on proteins and nucleic acids is the discovery of functional heterogeneity: the observation that complex cellular machines exhibit multiple, biologically active…
A formal analogy of fluctuating diffusivity to thermodynamics is discussed for messenger RNA molecules fluorescently fused to a protein in living cells. Regarding the average value of the fluctuating diffusivity of such RNA-protein…
A theory of the unzipping of double-stranded (ds) DNA is presented, and is compared to recent micromanipulation experiments. It is shown that the interactions which stabilize the double helix and the elastic rigidity of single strands (ss)…
The statistical physics of homogeneous DNA is investigated by the imaginary time path integral formalism. The base pair stretchings are described by an ensemble of paths selected through a macroscopic constraint, the fulfillement of the…
We studied the unzipping kinetics of single molecules of double-stranded DNA by pulling one of their two strands through a narrow protein pore. PCR analysis yielded the first direct proof of DNA unzipping in such a system. The time to unzip…
Nowadays different experimental techniques, such as single molecule or relaxation experiments, can provide dynamic properties of biomolecular systems, but the amount of detail obtainable with these methods is often limited in terms of time…
Inspired by its central role in many biological processes, the transport of biopolymers across nanoscale pores is at the heart of a single-molecule sensing technology aimed at nucleic acid and protein sequencing, as well as biomarker…
Metrics for indirectly predicting the folding rates of RNA sequences are of interest. In this letter, we introduce a simple metric of RNA structural complexity, which accounts for differences in the energetic contributions of RNA base…
The native structures of proteins, except for notable exceptions of intrinsically disordered proteins, in general take their most stable conformation in the physiological condition to maintain their structural framework so that their…
We propose a formalism for deriving force-elongation and elongation-force relations for flexible chain molecules from analytical expressions for their radial distribution function, which provides insight into the factors controlling the…
We propose a new approach for modelling the process of RNA folding as a graph transformation guided by the global value of free energy. Since the folding process evolves towards a configuration in which the free energy is minimal, the…
Folding of RNA is subject to a competition between entropy, relevant at high temperatures, and the random, or random looking, sequence, determining the low- temperature phase. It is known from numerical simulations that for random as well…
Examples of self propulsion in strongly fluctuating environment is abound in nature, e.g., molecular motors and pumps operating in living cells. Starting from Langevin equation of motion, we develop a fluctuating thermodynamic description…
We derive the single molecule equation of state (force-extension relation) for DNA molecules bearing sliding loops and deflection defects. Analytical results are obtained in the large force limit by employing an analogy with instantons in…
A statistical model of homopolymer DNA, coupling internal base pair states (unbroken or broken) and external thermal chain fluctuations, is exactly solved using transfer kernel techniques. The dependence on temperature and DNA length of the…