2005/11/30 by Saul Ares, S. Ares, A. Sánchez +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #Class (philosophy) #DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry #Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics #Interpretation (philosophy) #Logarithm #Monte Carlo method #Sequence (biology) #Simple (philosophy) #Wetting #Work (physics) #cond-mat.stat-mech #q-bio.BM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjb/e2007-00112-9
published as Eur. Phys. J. B 56, 253 (2007) · Final published version. Title and discussion modified. 6 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2007/04/01 · arxiv created 2007/05/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the effect of the composition of the genetic sequence on the melting temperature of double stranded DNA, using some simple analytically solvable models proposed in the framework of the wetting problem. We review previous work on disordered versions of these models and solve them when there were not preexistent solutions. We check the solutions with Monte Carlo simulations and transfer matrix numerical calculations. We present numerical evidence that suggests that the logarithmic corrections to the critical temperature due to disorder, previously found in RSOS models, apply more generally to ASOS and continuous models. The agreement between the theoretical models and experimental data shows that, in this context, disorder should be the crucial ingredient of any model while other aspects may be kept very simple, an approach that can be useful for a wider class of problems. Our work has also implications for the existence of correlations in DNA sequences.