2008/03/05 by Aruna Mohan, Mohan, Aruna, Anatoly B. Kolomeisky +3
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fuel Cells and Related Materials #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0803.0753
Submitted to J. Chem. Phys
arxiv created 2008/03/05 · openalex publication_date 2008/03/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a method for the theoretical investigation of polymer translocation through composite pore structures possessing arbitrarily specified geometries. Translocation through each constituent part of the composite is treated as being analogous to the diffusion of the translocation coordinate over the free energy landscape derived from the chain configurations within the pore. The proposed method accounts for possible reverse motions of the leading chain end at the interface between constituent parts of a composite pore, a possibility that has been neglected in prior studies. As an illustration of our method, we study the translocation of a Gaussian chain between two spherical compartments connected by a cylindrical pore, and by a composite pore consisting of two connected cylinders of different diameters, which is structurally similar to the α-hemolysin membrane channel. We demonstrate that reverse chain motions between the pore constituents may contribute significantly to the total translocation time. Our results further establish that translocation through a two-cylinder composite pore is faster when the chain is introduced into the pore on the cis (wide) side of the channel rather than the trans (narrow) side.