Related papers: Multiprotein DNA looping
The translocation of structured RNA or DNA molecules through narrow pores necessitates the opening of all base pairs. Here, we study the interplay between the dynamics of translocation and base-pairing theoretically, using kinetic Monte…
It has been suggested by several authors that nonlinear excitations, in particular solitary waves, could play a fundamental functional role in the process of DNA transcription, effecting the opening of the double chain needed for RNA…
This paper is a completion of an earlier model proposed by us. In the model different memories are attached at cell surface determinants which are the result of DNA recombination. Our earlier experiments strongly suggest that DNA…
Being a dual purpose enzyme, the DNA polymerase is responsible for elongation of the newly formed DNA strand as well as cleaving the erroneous growth in case of a misincorporation. The efficiency of replication depends on the coordination…
Repeat proteins are made with tandem copies of similar amino acid stretches that fold into elongated architectures. Due to their symmetry, these proteins constitute excellent model systems to investigate how evolution relates to structure,…
The bacterial genome is organized in a structure called the nucleoid by a variety of associated proteins. These proteins can form complexes on DNA that play a central role in various biological processes, including chromosome segregation. A…
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is involved in many regulatory and catalytic processes in the cell. The function of any RNA molecule is intimately related with its structure. In-line probing experiments provide valuable structural datasets for a…
The understanding of mechanisms that control epigenetic changes is an important research area in modern functional biology. Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation are in general very stable over many cell divisions. DNA…
Protein evolution underpins life, and understanding its behavior as a system is of great importance. However, our current models of protein evolution are arguably too simplistic to allow quantitative interpretation and prediction of…
One of the classical questions in evolutionary biology is how evolutionary processes are coupled at the gene and species level. With this motivation, we compare the topological properties (mainly the depth scaling, as a characterization of…
Recent experimental and theoretical approaches have attempted to quantify the physical organization (compaction and geometry) of the bacterial chromosome with its complement of proteins (the nucleoid). The genomic DNA exists in a complex…
We investigate the melting transition of non-supercoiled circular DNA of different lengths, employing Brownian dynamics simulation. In the absence of supercoiling, we find that melting of circular DNA is driven by a large bubble, which…
Previous divide-and-conquer segmentation analyses of DNA sequences do not provide a satisfactory stopping criterion for the recursion. This paper proposes that segmentation be considered as a model selection process. Using the tools in…
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,…
Cellular behavior is governed by gene regulatory processes that are intrinsically dynamic and nonlinear, and are subject to non-negligible amounts of random fluctuations. Such conditions are ubiquitous in physical systems, where they have…
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…
Protein synthesis is one of the most fundamental biological processes, which consumes a significant amount of cellular resources. Despite existence of multiple mathematical models of translation, varying in the level of mechanistical…
DNA nanocompartment is a typical DNA-based machine whose function is dependent of molecular collective effect. Fundamental properties of the device have been addressed via electrochemical analysis, fluorescent microscopy, and atomic force…
Cells use genetic switches to shift between alternate gene expression states, e.g., to adapt to new environments or to follow a developmental pathway. Here, we study the dynamics of switching in a generic-feedback on/off switch. Unlike…
The insertion of HIV and other DNA elements within genomes underpins both genetic diversity and disease when unregulated. Most of these insertions are not random and occupy specific positions within the genome but the physical mechanisms…