Related papers: Nonuniform Donnan Equilibrium within Bacteriophage…
The problem of DNA-DNA interaction mediated by divalent counterions is studied using computer simulation. Although divalent counterions cannot condense free DNA molecules in solution, we show that if DNA configurational entropy is…
DNA toroidal bundles form upon condensation of one or multiple DNA filaments. DNA filaments in toroidal bundles are hexagonally packed, and collectively twist around the center line of the toroid. In a previous study, we and our coworkers…
The competition between toroidal and rod-like conformations as possible ground states for DNA condensation is studied as a function of the stiffness, the length of the DNA and the form of the long-range interactions between neighboring…
A critical step in the bacteriophage life cycle is genome ejection into host bacteria. The ejection process for double-stranded DNA phages has been studied thoroughly \textit{in vitro}, where after triggering with the cellular receptor the…
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…
Negatively charged DNA can be compacted by positively charged dendrimers and the degree of compaction is a delicate balance between the strength of the electrostatic interaction and the elasticity of DNA. We report various elastic…
The adsorption of DNA or other polyelectrolyte molecules on charged membranes is a recurrent motif in soft matter and bionanotechnological systems. Two typical situations encountered are the deposition of single DNA chains onto substrates…
Previous theoretical studies have shown that measuring the transverse current across DNA strands while they translocate through a nanopore or channel may provide a statistically distinguishable signature of the DNA bases, and may thus allow…
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…
We study the control parameters that govern the dynamics of in vitro DNA ejection in bacteriophage lambda. Past work has demonstrated that bacteriophage DNA is highly pressurized; this pressure has been hypothesized to help drive DNA…
The macroscopic curvature induced in the double helical B-DNA by regularly repeated adenine tracts (A-tracts) is a long known, but still unexplained phenomenon. This effect plays a key role in DNA studies because it is unique in the amount…
We use a coarse-grained model of DNA-functionalized particles to understand the role of DNA chain length on their self-assembly. We find that the increasing chain length for a given particle size decreases the propensity to form ordered…
Studies of circular DNA confined to nanofluidic channels are relevant both from a fundamental polymer-physics perspective and due to the importance of circular DNA molecules in vivo. We here observe the unfolding of DNA from the circular to…
Bacteria meticulously regulate their intracellular ion concentrations and create ionic concentration gradients across the bacterial membrane. These ionic concentration gradients provide free energy for many cellular processes and are…
DNA is an ideal candidate to organize matter on the nanoscale, primarily due to the specificity and complexity of DNA based interactions. Recent advances in this direction include the self-assembly of colloidal crystals using DNA grafted…
In living cells, proteins combine 3D bulk diffusion and 1D sliding along the DNA to reach a target faster. This process is known as facilitated diffusion, and we investigate its dynamics in the physiologically relevant case of confined DNA.…
The complexity of the primary structure of human DNA is explored using methods from nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dynamical systems theory and information theory. The use of chi-square tests shows that DNA cannot be described as a…
We studied the electrical conductivity of DNA molecules with conducting atomic force microscopy as a function of the chemical nature of the substrate surfaces, the nature of the electrical contact, and the number of DNA molecules (from a…
The recently proposed compressed backbone theory suggested that the intrinsic curvature in DNA can result from a geometric mismatch between the specific backbone length and optimal base stacking orientations. It predicted that the curvature…
We study the nonlinear dynamics of a completely inhomogeneous DNA chain which is governed by a perturbed sine-Gordon equation. A multiple scale perturbation analysis provides perturbed kink-antikink solitons to represent open state…