Related papers: Disorder in DNA-Linked Gold Nanoparticle Assemblie…
We present a method of detecting sequence defects by supercoiling DNA with magnetic tweezers. The method is sensitive to a single mismatched base pair in a DNA sequence of several thousand base pairs. We systematically compare DNA molecules…
It has recently been shown that in some DNA microarrays the time needed to reach thermal equilibrium may largely exceed the typical experimental time, which is about 15h in standard protocols (Hooyberghs et al. Phys. Rev. E 81, 012901…
The chromatin fiber is a complex of DNA and specific proteins called histones forming the first structural level of organization of eukaryotic chromosomes. In tightly organized chromatin fibers, the short segments of naked DNA linking the…
There is so far no clear-cut experimental analysis that can determine whether dipole-dipole interactions enhance or reduce the blocking temperature $T_{B}$ of nanoparticle assemblies. It seems that the samples play a central role in the…
A unique property of metal nanoclusters is the "superatom" shell structure of their delocalized electrons. The electronic shell levels are highly degenerate and therefore represent sharp peaks in the density of states. This can enable…
Loops are essential secondary structure elements in folded DNA and RNA molecules and proliferate close to the melting transition. Using a theory for nucleic acid secondary structures that accounts for the logarithmic entropy c ln m for a…
The thermal conductivity of double-stranded (ds) B-DNA was systematically investigated using classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The effect of changing base-pairs on the thermal conductivity of dsDNA, needed investigation at a…
Anomalous non-exponential relaxation in hydrated biomolecules is commonly attributed to the complexity of the free-energy landscapes, similarly to polymers and glasses. It was found recently that the hydrogen-bond breathing of terminal DNA…
In search for novel nematic materials, a laterally linked H-shaped liquid crystal dimer have been synthesized and characterized. The distinct feature of the material is a very broad temperature range (about 50 oC) of the nematic phase,…
The effect of disorder on flux line lattice (FLL) melting is studied via the Peak Effect phenomenon. On the upper branch of the Peak Effect curve, where this effect is more robust, we observe a stepwise disordering of the FLL, suggesting…
We study a class of micromanipulation experiments, exemplified by the pulling apart of the two strands of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). When the pulling force is increased to a critical value, an ``unzipping'' transition occurs. For random…
DNA hybridization is a fundamental reaction with wide-ranging applications in biotechnology. The nearest-neighbor (NN) model provides the most reliable description of the energetics of duplex formation. Most DNA thermodynamics studies have…
In many biopolymer solutions, attractive interactions that stabilize finite-sized clusters at low concentrations also promote phase separation at high concentrations. Here we study a model biopolymer system that exhibits the opposite…
We present results of a numerical mean field treatment of interacting spins and carriers in doped diluted magnetic semiconductors, which takes into account the positional disorder present in these alloy systems. Disorder is found to enhance…
We use state-of-the-art molecular dynamics simulations to study the effects of annealed disorder on the phase separating kinetics and aging phenomena of a segregating binary fluid mixture. In the presence of disorder, we observe a dramatic…
As sections of a strand duplexed DNA denature when exposed to high temperature, the excess linking number is taken up by the undenatured portions of the molecule. The mechanical energy that arises because of the overwinding of the…
We use a recently developed coarse-grained model to simulate the overstretching of duplex DNA. Overstretching at 23C occurs at 74 pN in the model, about 6-7 pN higher than the experimental value at equivalent salt conditions. Furthermore,…
We present a detailed molecular-dynamics study of the melting, freezing, and coalescence of gold nanoclusters within the framework of the embedded-atom method. Concerning melting, we find the process to first affect the surface…
We study melting in a two-dimensional system of classical particles with Gaussian-core interactions in disordered environments. The pure system validates the conventional two-step melting with a hexatic phase intervening between the solid…
The stability and dynamics of a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) is affected by the preferential occupancy of small monovalent molecular ions. Small metal and molecular ions such as sodium and alkyl ammonium have crucial biological functions in…