Related papers: Electrostatic effects in DNA stretching
This paper aims at a comprehensive understanding on the novel elastic property of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) discovered very recently through single-molecule manipulation techniques. A general elastic model for double-stranded biopolymers…
1. Introduction 2. Charged chains at infinite dilution - asymptotic properties 2.1 Definition of the model and Flory-like calculation 2.2 Variational approaches 2.3 Renormalization group calculations 2.4 Screening of electrostatic…
We study the elastic response of a worm-like polymer chain with reversible kink-like structural defects. This is a generic model for (a) the double-stranded DNA with sharp bends induced by binding of certain proteins, and (b) effects of…
We calculate the equation of state of DNA under tension for the case that the DNA features loops. Such loops occur transiently during DNA condensation in the presence of multivalent ions or sliding cationic protein linkers. The…
Minuscule molecular forces can transform DNA into a structure that is elongated by more than half its original length. We demonstrate that this pronounced conformational transition is of relevance to ongoing experimental and theoretical…
In this paper we consider a physical system in which two DNA molecules braid about each other. The distance between the two molecular ends, on either side of the braid, is held at a distance much larger than supercoiling radius of the…
The symmetries of the DNA double helix require a new term in its linear response to stress: the coupling between twist and stretch. Recent experiments with torsionally-constrained single molecules give the first direct measurement of this…
We use large scale Monte Carlo simulations to test scaling theories for the electrostatic persistence length $l_e$ of isolated, uniformly charged polymers with \DH intrachain interactions in the limit where the screening length…
Single T4-DNA molecules were confined in rectangular-shaped channels with a depth of 300 nm and a width in the range 150-300 nm casted in a poly(dimethylsiloxane) nanofluidic chip. The extensions of the DNA molecules were measured with…
We develop a continuum elastic approach to examining the bending mechanics of semiflexible filaments with a local internal degree of freedom that couples to the bending modulus. We apply this model to study the nonlinear mechanics of a…
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…
While stretching of most polymer chains leads to rather featureless force-extension diagrams, some, notably DNA, exhibit non-trivial behavior with a distinct plateau region. Here we propose a unified theory that connects force-extension…
We introduce a coarse-grained model of DNA with bases modeled as rigid-body ellipsoids to capture their anisotropic stereochemistry. Interaction potentials are all physicochemical and generated from all-atom simulation/parameterization with…
We reconsider the electrostatic contribution to the persistence length, $\ell_e$, of a single, infinitely long charged polymer in the presence of screening. A Gaussian variational method is employed, taking $\ell_e$ as the only variational…
We use a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model to study the electrophoretic behaviour of flexible polyelectrolyte chains. We first characterize the static properties of the model with respect to the chain length, the polyelectrolyte…
The persistence length of a single, strongly charged, stiff polyelectrolyte chain is investigated theoretically. Path integral formulation is used to obtain the effective electrostatic interaction between the monomers. We find significant…
Many proteins interact with and deform double-stranded DNA in cells. Single-molecule experiments have studied the elasticity of DNA with helix-deforming proteins, including proteins that bend DNA. These experiments increase the need for…
The sequence-dependent elasticity of double-helical DNA on a nm length scale can be captured by the rigid base-pair model, whose strains are the relative position and orientation of adjacent base-pairs. Corresponding elastic potentials have…
Within a simple elastic theory, we study the elongation versus force characteristics of a supercoiled DNA molecule at thermal equilibrium in the regime of small supercoiling. The partition function is mapped to the path integral…
We present a set of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of strongly charged, flexible polyelectrolyte chains under poor solvent conditions in a salt free solution. Structural properties of the chains and of the solutions are reported. By…