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Chirality modifies the interaction between knots

Autor(en)
Saeed Najafi, Luca Tubiana, Rudolf Podgornik, Raffaello Potestio
Abstrakt

In this study we consider an idealization of a typical optical tweezers experiment involving a semiflexible double-knotted polymer, with steric hindrance and persistence length matching those of dsDNA in high salt concentration, under strong stretching. Using exhaustive molecular-dynamics simulations we show that not only does a double-knotted dsDNA filament under tension possess a free-energy minimum when the two knots are intertwined, but also that the depth of this minimum depends on the relative chirality of the two knots. We rationalize this dependence of the effective interaction on the chirality in terms of a competition between chain entropy and bending energy.

Organisation(en)
Computergestützte Physik und Physik der Weichen Materie
Externe Organisation(en)
Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung, University of Ljubljana
Journal
Europhysics Letters
Band
114
Anzahl der Seiten
6
ISSN
0295-5075
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/114/50007
Publikationsdatum
06-2016
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
106006 Biophysik
Schlagwörter
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/ffec8c60-924f-4e2f-951f-b42dee0cd99c