Related papers: Controlled DNA compaction within chromatin: the ta…
We introduce a coarse-grained rigid nucleotide model of DNA that reproduces the basic thermodynamics of short strands: duplex hybridization, single-stranded stacking and hairpin formation, and also captures the essential structural…
Faithful segregation of genetic material during cell division requires alignment of chromosomes between two spindle poles and attachment of their kinetochores to each of the poles. Failure of these complex dynamical processes leads to…
We study the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate held in an optical lattice. We first show how a self-trapping transition can be induced in the system by either increasing the number of atoms occupying a lattice site, or by raising the…
Prokaryotes do not make use of a nucleus membrane to segregate their genetic material from the cytoplasm, so that their nucleoid is potentially free to explore the whole volume of the cell. Nonetheless, high resolution images of bacteria…
Our study aims at a better control and understanding of the transfer of a complex [DNA supercoiled plasmid - dodecyltrimethylammonium surfactant] layer from a liquid-vapour water interface onto a silicon surface without any additional…
When multivalent salts are added to dilute DNA solution, the DNA chains condense into bundles of a well-defined size. We explore two physical problems motivated by this phenomenon: the origin of the attractive interactions between the…
We report on a new class of hybrid electronic devices based on a DNA nucleoside (deoxyguanosine lipophilic derivative) whose assembled polymeric ribbons interconnect a submicron metallic gate. The device exhibits large conductivity at room…
Cooperativity plays an important role in the action of proteins bound to DNA. A simple, mechanical mechanism for cooperativity, in the form of a tension-mediated interaction between proteins bound to DNA at two different locations is…
Electrostatic interactions are key to the recognition processes of proteins and DNA and have been previously documented for the action of repair enzymes. Uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) is the first in a sequence of enzymes that act in the…
Although both RNA and proteins have densely packed native structures, chain organizations of these two biopolymers are fundamentally different. Motivated by the recent discoveries in chromatin folding that interphase chromosomes have…
Transcriptional activity has been shown to relate to the organization of chromosomes in the eukaryotic nucleus and in the bacterial nucleoid. In particular, highly transcribed genes, RNA polymerases and transcription factors gather into…
Although carbon nanotubes are potential candidates for DNA encapsulation and subsequent delivery of biological payloads to living cells, the thermodynamical spontaneity of DNA encapsulation under physiological conditions is still a matter…
Nucleosomes organize the folding of DNA into chromatin and significantly influence transcription, replication, regulation and repair. All atom molecular dynamics simulations of a nucleosome and of its 146 basepairs of DNA free in solution…
Recent structural findings have shown that dynamin, a cytosol protein playing a key-role in clathrin-mediated endocytosis, inserts partly within the lipid bilayer and tends to self-assemble around lipid tubules. Taking into account these…
Translocation of a single stranded DNA through genetically engineered $\alpha$-hemolysin channels with positively charged walls is studied. It is predicted that transport properties of such channels are dramatically different from neutral…
The effects of monovalent (Na+, K+) and divalent (Mg2+, Ca2+, Mn2+) ions on the interaction between DNA and histone are studied using the molecular combing technique. Lamda-DNA molecules and DNA-histone complexes incubated with metal…
We construct and analyze monomeric and multimeric models of the stochastic disassembly of a single nucleosome. Our monomeric model predicts the time needed for a number of histone-DNA contacts to spontaneously break, leading to dissociation…
The ability to control the crystallization behaviour (including its absence) of particles, be they biomolecules such as globular proteins, inorganic colloids, nanoparticles, or metal atoms in an alloy, is of both fundamental and…
We present a theoretical model of facilitated diffusion of proteins in the cell nucleus. This model, which takes into account the successive binding/unbinding events of proteins to DNA, relies on a fractal description of the chromatin which…
We report a new doorway mechanism for the dissociative electron attachment to genetic materials. The dipole-bound state of the nucleotide anion acts as the doorway for electron capture in the genetic material. The electron gets subsequently…