Translocation of a forced polymer chain through a crowded channel

¹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University Nanjing 210093, China
² Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
³ Department of Physics, Hangzhou Dianzi University - Hangzhou 310018, China

^(a) jxchen@hdu.edu.cn
^(b) myqiang@nju.edu.cn
^(c) jianshu@mit.edu

Received: 6 February 2014
Accepted: 20 March 2014

Abstract

We construct a coarse-grained model in terms of the multiple particles collision (MPC) method to study the translocation dynamics of a linear polymer through a crowded channel full of fixed obstacles. The influences of a crowded environment are focused on. We explore the power-law dependence of the polymer mobility coefficient on its length and on the crowded environment. It is shown that the crowded environment may benefit the length-dependent separation of polymer chains. The exponents characterizing the power-law behavior are discussed to distinguish different dynamical regimes. The properties of the translocating polymer, such as trajectory, moving configuration, and radius of gyration, are investigated. The influences of the radius of obstacles and hydrodynamics interaction on the translocating process are also studied. We believe our studies can shed light on the understanding of complex transport processes in many biological systems.