Chirality modifies the interaction between knots
- Author(s)
- Saeed Najafi, Luca Tubiana, Rudolf Podgornik, Raffaello Potestio
- Abstract
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(s)
- Computational and Soft Matter Physics
- External organisation(s)
- Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, University of Ljubljana
- Journal
- Europhysics Letters
- Volume
- 114
- No. of pages
- 6
- ISSN
- 0295-5075
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/114/50007
- Publication date
- 06-2016
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 106006 Biophysics
- Keywords
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/chirality-modifies-the-interaction-between-knots(ffec8c60-924f-4e2f-951f-b42dee0cd99c).html