| Issue |
EPL
Volume 85, Number 3, February 2009
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 38005 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/85/38005 | |
| Published online | 13 February 2009 | |
Statistics of confined polymers and the melting of a DNA spool
SUPA, School of Physics, University of Edinburgh - Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK, EU
Corresponding author: dmarendu@ph.ed.ac.uk
Received:
19
August
2008
Accepted:
18
December
2008
Using Monte Carlo simulations, we analyse the statistical properties of a
semiflexible polymer strongly confined in space into an ellipsoidal hull. We show evidence
of a sharp crossover or of a phase transition, between ordered structures such as spools,
and disordered ones, as a function of the persistence length of the chain. We discuss
our results in relation to the packing of double-stranded DNA molecules inside
bacteriophage capsids, a biological system which our results suggest is positioned close to
the crossover
transition point.
PACS: 87.15.B- – Structure of biomolecules / 87.14.gk – DNA / 64.70.mf – Theory and modeling of specific liquid crystal transitions, including computer simulation
© EPLA, 2009
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