2003/06/30 by Suckjoon Jun, John Bechhoefer
Physics and Astronomy · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #physics.bio-ph #q-bio.BM #q-bio.OT
published as Physics in Canada vol. 59. no. 2, pp. 85-92 (2003) · Invited review article on polymer physics for Physics in Canada (2003), 14 pages + 6 figures
arxiv created 2003/09/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Loop formation in long molecules occurs many places in nature, from solutions of carbon nanotubes to polymers inside a cell. In this article, we review theoretical studies of the static and dynamic properties of polymer loops. For example, long polymers must search many configurations to find a "target" binding site, while short polymers are stiff and resist bending. In between, there is an optimal loop size, which balances the entropy of long loops against the energetic cost of short loops. We show that such simple pictures of loop formation can explain several long-standing observations in DNA replication, quantitatively.