Related papers: A Minimal Model of B-DNA
Complementary DNA strands in solution reliably hybridize to form stable duplexes. We study the kinetics of the hybridization process and the mechanisms by which two initially isolated strands come together to form a stable double helix. We…
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of ions (K$^+$, Na$^+$, Ca$^{2+}$ and Cl$^-$) in aqueous solutions are investigated. Water is described using the SPC/E model. A stochastic coarse-grained description for ion behaviour is presented and…
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are widely used to study biological systems, where water molecules often play a critical role in protein-ligand interactions. In conventional MD preparation protocols, water molecules are typically added…
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…
Molecular recognition between two double stranded (ds) DNA with homologous sequences may not seem compatible with the B-DNA structure because the sequence information is hidden when it is used for joining the two strands. Nevertheless, it…
Emergent phenomena share the fascinating property of not being obvious consequences of the design of the system in which they appear. This characteristic is no less relevant when attempting to simulate such phenomena, given that the outcome…
Genomes contain rare guanine-rich sequences capable of assembling into four-stranded helical structures, termed G-quadruplexes, with potential roles in gene regulation and chromosome stability. Their mechanical unfolding has only been…
Redox processes are important in chemistry, with applications in biomedicine, chemical analysis, among others. As many redox experiments are also performed at a fixed value of pH, having an efficient computational method to support…
The objective of the present study was to develop an understanding of short single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) to assist the development of new DNA-based biosensors. A ssDNA model containing twelve bases was constructed from the 130-145 codon…
We study the dynamics of hydration water/protein association in folded proteins, using lysozyme and myoglobin as examples. Extensive molecular dynamics simulations are performed to identify underlying mechanisms of the dynamical transition…
Three coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) models are investigated with the aim of developing and analyzing multiscale methods which use MD simulations in parts of the computational domain and (less detailed) Brownian dynamics (BD)…
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…
The electrodynamic response of DNA in the millimeter wave range is investigated. By performing measurements under a wide range of humidity conditions and comparing the response of single strand DNA and double strand DNA, we show that the…
The local opening of DNA is an intriguing phenomenon from a statistical physics point of view, but is also essential for its biological function. For instance, the transcription and replication of our genetic code can not take place without…
Multivalent interactions between deformable mesoscopic units are ubiquitous in biology, where membrane macromolecules mediate the interactions between neighbouring living cells and between cells and solid substrates. Lately, analogous…
We report a study of DNA (150 bp fragments) conformations in very low added salt $<0.05$mM, across wide DNA concentration range $0.0015\leq c \leq 8$~mM (bp). We found an intermediate DNA conformation in the region $0.05 < c < 1$~mM, by…
Understanding the nature of solvated electrons is important in studying a range of chemical and biological phenomena. This study investigates the structural and dynamical behavior of an excess electron in water, examining different…
In many organisms, homologous (or repetitive) chromosomal regions can associate or/and undergo concerted epigenetic changes in the absence of DNA breakage and recombination. The direct specific pairing of DNA duplexes with similar…
Although a vast amount of experimental information is available on the elongation, compression, and folding of proteins in biochemical processes, very little is known about the real structure and molecular dynamics of DNA at an atomic…
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…