2008/02/29 by Theo Odijk, T. Odijk · 203 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Biology #Classical mechanics #DNA #Deflection (physics) #Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions #Excluded volume #Genetics #Geometry #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Mathematics #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Persistence length #Physics #Polymer #Quantum mechanics #Scaling #Scaling law #Statistical physics #cond-mat.other #cond-mat.soft #q-bio.BM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.77.060901
published in Physical Review E 77(6), 060901 (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 1 figure Several corrections, some minor changes in the text and replacement of one reference
arxiv created 2008/05/16 · openalex publication_date 2008/06/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A scaling analysis is presented of the statistics of long DNA confined in nanochannels and nanoslits. It is argued that there are several regimes in between the de Gennes and Odijk limits introduced long ago. The DNA chain folds back on itself giving rise to a global persistence length that may be very large owing to entropic deflection. Moreover, there is an orientational excluded-volume effect between the DNA segments imposed solely by the nanoconfinement. These two effects cause the chain statistics to be intricate leading to nontrivial power laws for the chain extension in the intermediate regimes. It is stressed that DNA confinement within nanochannels differs from that in nanoslits because the respective orientational excluded-volume effects are not the same.