|
DNA nanotweezers studied with a coarse-grained model of DNAThomas E. Ouldridge, Ard A. Louis and Jonathan P.K. DoyePhys. Rev. Lett. 104, 178101 (2009)AbstractWe introduce a coarse-grained rigid nucleotide model of DNA that reproduces the basic thermodynamics of short strands, duplex hybridization, single-stranded stacking, and hairpin formation, and also captures the essential structural properties of DNA: the helical pitch, persistence length, and torsional stiffness of double-stranded molecules, as well as the comparative flexibility of unstacked single strands. We apply the model to calculate the detailed free-energy landscape of one full cycle of DNA “tweezers,” a simple machine driven by hybridization and strand displacement.The full paper is available from PRL Online and arXiv.org. |