相关论文: Biopolymer Elasticity
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
In recent years, single molecule force techniques have opened a new avenue to decipher the folding landscapes of biopolymers by allowing us to watch and manipulate the dynamics of individual proteins and nucleic acids. In single molecule…
The internal dynamics of strongly interacting systems and that of biomolecules such as proteins display several important analogies, despite the huge difference in their characteristic energy and length scales. For example, in all such…
The structural flexibility of nucleic acids plays a key role in many fundamental life processes, such as gene replication and expression, DNA-protein recognition, and gene regulation. To obtain a thorough understanding of nucleic acid…
Cell spreading is investigated at various scales in order to understand motility of living cells which is essential for a range of physiological activities in higher organisms as well as in microbes. At a microscopic scale, it has been seen…
Along with recent progress in structural biology and genome biology, structural dynamics of molecular systems including nucleic acids has attracted attention in the context of gene regulation. Structure-function relationship is an important…
We develop a model for gels and entangled solutions of semiflexible biopolymers such as F-actin. Such networks play a crucial structural role in the cytoskeleton of cells. We show that the rheologic properties of these networks can result…
Heteropolymers are ubiquitous in both synthetic systems, such as block copolymers, and biological macromolecules, including proteins and nucleic acids. Beyond their chemical composition, these polymers often exhibit spatial variations in…
Active matter agents consume internal energy or extract energy from the environment for locomotion and force generation. Already rather generic models, such as ensembles of active Brownian particles, exhibit phenomena, which are absent at…
Adhesion plays an integral role in diverse biological functions ranging from cellular transport to tissue development. Estimation of adhesion strength, therefore, becomes important to gain biophysical insight into these phenomena. In this…
We study the compression and extension dynamics of a DNA-like polymer interacting with non-DNA binding and DNA-binding proteins, by means of computer simulations. The geometry we consider is inspired by recent experiments probing the…
The recent discovery of electro-active polymers has shown great promises in the field of soft robotics, and was logically followed by experimental, numerical and theoretical developments. Most of these studies were concerned with systems…
We examine the elastic model of short circular DNA. We obtain analytic expressions for configurations, elastic energy, twist and linking number of our solutions. We find the onset of the plectonemic transition. We suggest ways to use our…
A versatile approach to modeling the conformations and energetics of DNA loops is presented. The model is based on the classical theory of elasticity, modified to describe the intrinsic twist and curvature of DNA, the DNA bending…
We present the results of a self-consistent, unified molecular dynamics study of simple model heteropolymers in the continuum with emphasis on folding, sequence design and the determination of the interaction parameters of the effective…
The elastic properties of a self-assembled bilayer membrane are studied using the self-consistent field theory, applied to a model system composed of flexible amphiphilic chains dissolved in hydrophilic polymeric solvents. Examining the…
We study theoretically the entropic elasticity of a semi-flexible polymer, such as DNA, confined to two dimensions. Using the worm-like-chain model we obtain an exact analytical expression for the partition function of the polymer pulled at…
At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
A theoretical framework for evaluating the approximate energy and dynamic properties associated with the folding of DNA into nucleosomes and chromatin is presented. For this purpose experimentally determined elastic constants of linear DNA…