Related papers: Structural Modeling of DNA Loops in Lactose-Repres…
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…
Specific binding of proteins to DNA is one of the most common ways in which gene expression is controlled. Although general rules for the DNA-protein recognition can be derived, the ambiguous and complex nature of this mechanism precludes a…
A model for the motion of ring-shaped DNA in a gel is introduced and studied by numerical simulations and a mean-field approximation. The ring motion is mediated by finger-shaped loops (hernias) that move in an amoeba-like fashion around…
We here examine the nonlinear dynamics of artificial homogeneous DNA chain relying on the plain-base rotator model. It is shown that such dynamics can exhibit kink and antikink solitons of sine-Gordon type. In that respect we propose…
Cells operate in part by compartmentalizing chemical reactions. For example, recent work has shown that chromatin, the material that contains the cell's genome, can auto-regulate its structure by utilizing reaction products (proteins, RNA)…
Single molecule DNA experiments often generate data from force versus extension measurements involving the tethering of a microsphere to one end of a single DNA molecule while the other is attached to a substrate. We show that the…
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…
RNA polymerase (RNAP) is a mobile molecular workshop that polymerizes a RNA molecule by adding monomeric subunits one by one, while moving step by step on the DNA template itself. Here we develop a theoretical model by incorporating the…
We investigate quantum transport characteristics of a ladder model, which effectively mimics the topology of a double-stranded DNA molecule. We consider the interaction of tunneling charges with a selected internal vibrational degree of…
The mechanical model based on beads and springs, which we recently proposed to study non-specific DNA-protein interactions [J. Chem. Phys. 130, 015103 (2009)], was improved by describing proteins as sets of interconnected beads instead of…
We construct a theoretical model for the dynamics of a microscale colloidal particle, modeled as an interval, moving horizontally on a DNA-coated surface, modelled as a line coated with springs that can stick to the interval. Averaging over…
We investigate the nonlinear dynamics of a damped Peyrard-Bishop DNA model taking into account long-range interactions with distance dependence |l|^-s on the elastic coupling constant between different DNA base pairs. Considering both…
Gene regulation is one of the most important fundamental biological processes in living cells. It involves multiple protein molecules that locate specific sites on DNA and assemble gene initiation or gene repression multi-molecular…
Most of the anticancer drugs bind to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) by intercalative-binding mode. Although experimental studies have become available recently, a molecular-level understanding of the interactions between the drug and dsDNA…
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…
Proteins often regulate their activities via allostery - or action at a distance - in which the binding of a ligand at one binding site influences the affinity for another ligand at a distal site. Although less studied than in proteins,…
DNA looping has been observed to enhance and suppress transcriptional noise but it is uncertain which of these two opposite effects is to be expected for given conditions. Here, we derive analytical expressions for the main quantifiers of…
We present a phenomenological dynamical model able to describe the stretching features of the curve of DNA length vs applied force. As concerns the chain, the model is based on the discrete wormlike chain model with elastic modifications,…
Polymer architecture plays critical roles in both bulk rheological properties and microscale macromolecular dynamics in entangled polymer solutions and composites. Ring polymers, in particular, have been the topic of much debate due to the…
The free energy of looping DNA by proteins and protein complexes determines to what extent distal DNA sites can affect each other. We inferred its in vivo value through a combined computational-experimental approach for different lengths of…