Randomly cross-linked polymer models

2017/05/11 by Ofir Shukron, David Holcman, Shukron, Ofir +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry #FOS: Physical sciences #Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics #Protein Structure and Dynamics #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1705.04041

openalex publication_date 2017/05/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Polymer models are used to describe chromatin, which can be folded at different spatial scales by binding molecules. By folding, chromatin generates loops of various sizes. We present here a randomly cross-linked (RCL) polymer model, where monomer pairs are connected randomly. We obtain asymptotic formulas for the steady-state variance, encounter probability, the radius of gyration, instantaneous displacement and the mean first encounter time between any two monomers. The analytical results are confirmed by Brownian simulations. Finally, the present results can be used to extract the minimum number of cross-links in a chromatin region from conformation capture data.

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