| Issue |
EPL
Volume 114, Number 5, June 2016
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 50007 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | General | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/114/50007 | |
| Published online | 05 July 2016 | |
Chirality modifies the interaction between knots
1 Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research - Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany
2 University of Vienna, Computational Physics Group - Sensengasse 8, 1090, Vienna, Austria
3 University of Ljubljana, Faculty for Mathematics and Physics - Jadranska 19, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Received: 28 April 2016
Accepted: 8 June 2016
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.
PACS: 02.10.Kn – Knot theory / 36.20.Ey – Conformation (statistics and dynamics) / 36.20.-r – Macromolecules and polymer molecules
© EPLA, 2016
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