Force induced DNA melting

Santosh, Mogurampelly and Maiti, Prabal K (2009) Force induced DNA melting. In: Journal of Physics- Condensed Matter, 21 (3). pp. 101-139. (In Press)

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Abstract

When pulled along the axis, double-strand DNA undergoes a large conformational change and elongates by roughly twice its initial contour length at a pulling force of about 70 pN. The transition to this highly overstretched form of DNA is very cooperative. Applying a force perpendicular to the DNA axis (unzipping), double-strand DNA can also be separated into two single-stranded DNA, this being a fundamental process in DNA replication. We study the DNA overstretching and unzipping transition using fully atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and argue that the conformational changes of double-strand DNA associated with either of the above mentioned processes can be viewed as force induced DNA melting. As the force at one end of the DNA is increased the DNA starts melting abruptly/smoothly above a critical force depending on the pulling direction. The critical force fm, at which DNA melts completely decreases as the temperature of the system is increased. The melting force in the case of unzipping is smaller compared to the melting force when the DNA is pulled along the helical axis. In the case of melting through unzipping, the double-strand separation has jumps which correspond to the different energy minima arising due to sequence of different base pairs. The fraction of Watson–Crick base pair hydrogen bond breaking as a function of force does not show smooth and continuous behavior and consists of plateaus followed by sharp jumps.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Physics- Condensed Matter
Publisher:	Institute of physics
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Institute of physics.
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	21 Jul 2009 15:02
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 05:00
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/18125

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