2001/07/10 by Simona Cocco, S. Cocco, Rémi Monasson +3 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Biochemistry #Biology #Biophysics #Chemistry #Classical mechanics #Composite material #DNA #Double stranded #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Helix (gastropod) #Kinetic energy #Kinetics #Materials science #Molecule #Nanofabrication and Lithography Techniques #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Nucleotide #Physics #Rigidity (electromagnetism) #cond-mat.stat-mech #q-bio
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.151257598
Revtex file + 6 eps Figures; published in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 8608 (2001)
openalex publication_date 2001/07/10 · arxiv created 2002/02/26 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A theory of the unzipping of double-stranded DNA is presented and is compared to recent micromanipulation experiments. It is shown that the interactions that stabilize the double helix and the elastic rigidity of single strands simply determine the sequence-dependent approximately 12-pN force threshold for DNA strand separation. Using a semimicroscopic model of the binding between nucleotide strands, we show that the greater rigidity of the strands when formed into double-stranded DNA, relative to that of isolated strands, gives rise to a potential barrier to unzipping. The effects of this barrier are derived analytically. The force to keep the extremities of the molecule at a fixed distance, the kinetic rates for strand unpairing at fixed applied force, and the rupture force as a function of loading rate are calculated. The dependence of the kinetics and of the rupture force on molecule length is also analyzed.