Statistical properties of metastable intermediates in DNA unzipping
Author
Huguet, Josep Maria
Forns, N.
Ritort, F.
Publication date
2009ISSN
0031-9007
Abstract
We unzip DNA molecules using optical tweezers and determine the sizes of the cooperatively unzipping and zipping regions separating consecutive metastable intermediates along the unzipping pathway. Sizes are found to be distributed following a power law, ranging from one base pair up to more than a hundred base pairs. We find that a large fraction of unzipping regions smaller than 10 bp are seldom detected because of the high compliance of the released single stranded DNA. We show how the compliance of a single nucleotide sets a limit value around 0.1 N/m for the stiffness of any local force probe aiming to discriminate one base pair at a time in DNA unzipping experiments.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
57 - Biological sciences in general
Keywords
DNA
Pages
4
Publisher
American Physical Society
Collection
103
Is part of
Physical Review Letters
Citation
Huguet, Josep Maria; Forns, N.; Ritort, F. Statistical Properties of Metastable Intermediates in DNA Unzipping. Physical Review Letters, 2009, 103, 248106. Disponible en: <https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.248106>. Fecha de acceso: 18 mar. 2024. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.248106
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Ciències Bàsiques [65]
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