Closure of DNA denaturation bubbles coupled to DNA elasticity
Fermeture de bulles de dénaturation de l'ADN couplé à l'élasticité de l'ADN
Résumé
The physical understanding of biological processes such as transcription requires the knowledge of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) physics. A notable thermo- dynamic property of dsDNA is its denaturation, at the melting temperature, in which it unwinds into two single-stranded DNAs via the formation of denat- uration bubbles (segment of consecutive unpaired base-pairs). The dynamics of denaturation has been studied so far at the base-pair (bp) scale, ignoring conformational chain degrees of freedom. These studies do not explain the very long closure times of 20 to 100 s, measured by Altan-Bonnet et al., of 18 bps long bubbles at room temperature. In this thesis, we study the closure of pre-equilibrated large bubbles, by using Brownian dynamics simulations of two simple DNA coarse- grained models. We show that the closure occurs via two steps: rst, a fast zipping of the initial bubble occurs until a meta-stable state is reached, due to the large bending and twisting energies stored in the bubble. Then, the meta-stable bubble closes either via rotational di usion of the sti side arms until their alignment, or bubble di usion until it reaches the chain end, or locally by thermal activation, depending on the DNA length and elastic moduli. We show that the physical mechanism behind these long timescales is therefore the dynamical coupling between base-pair and chain degrees of freedom.
Domaines
Biophysique [physics.bio-ph]
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