Related papers: Maximum pull out force on DNA hybrids
The accurate knowledge of the elastic properties of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) is key to characterize the thermodynamics of molecular reactions that are studied by force spectroscopy methods where DNA is mechanically unfolded. Examples…
We present micro-rheological measurments of the drag force on colloids pulled through a solution of lambda-DNA (used here as a monodisperse model polymer) with an optical tweezer. The experiments show a violation of the Stokes-Einstein…
Overstretching of B-DNA is currently understood as force-induced melting. Depending on the geometry of the stretching experiment, the force threshold for the overstretching transition is around 65 or 110 pN. Although the mechanisms behind…
Single-molecule experiments provide new insights into biological processes hitherto not accessible by measurements performed on bulk systems. We report on a study of the kinetics of a triple-branch DNA molecule with four conformational…
Flexibility of short DNA helices is important for the biological functions such as nucleosome formation and DNA-protein recognition. Recent experiments suggest that short DNAs of tens of base pairs (bps) may have apparently higher…
Recently Storm and Nelson [1] (Phys.Rev. E67, 51906 (2003)) introduced the discrete persistent chain model which contains both features of the freely jointed chain (FJC) and the wormlike chain (WLC) models. Equation (20) of their paper is…
Plectonemes are intertwined helically looped domains which form when a DNA molecule is supercoiled, i.e. over- or under-wounded. They are ubiquitous in cellular DNA and their physical properties have attracted significant interest both from…
The chiral nature of DNA plays a crucial role in cellular processes. Here we use magnetic tweezers to explore one of the signatures of this chirality, the coupling between stretch and twist deformations. We show that the extension of a…
A methodology for the statistical mechanical analysis of polymeric chains under tension introduced previously is extended to include torque. The response of individual bonds between monomers or of entire groups of monomers to a combination…
We study the force-induced unfolding of random disordered RNA or single-stranded DNA polymers. The system undergoes a second order phase transition from a collapsed globular phase at low forces to an extensive necklace phase with a…
The histone-DNA interaction in the nucleosome is a fundamental mechanism of genomic compaction and regulation, which remains largely unkown despite a growing structural knowledge of the complex. Here, we propose a framework for the…
Mechanical properties of DNA, in particular their stretch dependent extension and their loop formation characteristics, have been recognized as an effective probe for understanding the possible biochemical role played by them in a living…
We propose a simple nonlinear scaler displacement model to calculate the distribution of effect created by a shear stress on a double stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecule and the value of shear force $F_c$ which is required to separate the two…
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…
We present a perturbation theory to find the response of an anisotropic DNA to the external tension. It is shown that the anisotropy has a nonzero but small contribution to the force-extension curve of the DNA. Thus an anisotropic DNA…
Structural changes in giant DNA induced by the addition of the flexible polymer PEG were examined by the method of single-DNA observation. In dilute DNA conditions, individual DNA assumes a compact state via a discrete coil-globule…
A simple one-dimensional lattice model is suggested to describe the experimentally observed plateau in force-stretching diagrams for some macromolecules. This chain model involves the nearest-neighbor interaction of a Morse-like potential…
The effective DNA-DNA interaction force is calculated by computer simulations with explicit tetravalent counterions and monovalent salt. For overcharged DNA molecules, the interaction force shows a double-minimum structure. The positions…
We investigate irreversibility and dissipation in single molecules that cooperatively fold/unfold in a two state manner under the action of mechanical force. We apply path thermodynamics to derive analytical expressions for the average…
Recent theoretical predictions on DNA mechanical separation induced by pulling forces are numerically tested within a model in which self-avoidance for DNA strands is fully taken into account. DNA strands are described by interacting pairs…