2013/10/31 by Alexey K. Mazur, Mounir Maaloum · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic force microscopy #Bending #Chain (unit) #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Composite material #Computer science #DNA #DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry #Flexibility (engineering) #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Gaussian #Gaussian network model #Materials science #Mathematics #Microscopy #Molecular physics #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Nanotechnology #Noise (video) #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #Statistics #cond-mat.soft #q-bio.BM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.112.068104
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. (2014) 112,068104 · 5 pages, 5 figures; to appear in PRL
arxiv created 2014/01/21 · openalex publication_date 2014/02/14 · arxiv updated 2014/07/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Unusually high bending flexibility has been recently reported for DNA on short length scales. We use atomic force microscopy (AFM) in solution to obtain a direct estimate of DNA bending statistics for scales down to one helical turn. It appears that DNA behaves as a Gaussian chain and is well described by the wormlike chain model at length scales beyond 3 helical turns (10.5 nm). Below this threshold, the AFM data exhibit growing noise because of experimental limitations. This noise may hide small deviations from the Gaussian behavior, but they can hardly be significant.