ISSN:
0025-116X
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Polymer and Materials Science
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Physics
Notes:
Many complexes of biological interest, like nucleosomes or v bodies and DNA-protein complexes, can be modelled like a structure composed by a sphere joined to a rigid rod or to a flexible chain of identical beads. In this work we present a theoretical study using these models for the evaluation of some reduced conformational and hydrodynamic properties: end-to-end distance, radius of gyration and translational friction coefficient. Two kinds of models were employed: a sphere joined to one of the two ends of a rod or chain and a sphere joined to the halfpoint of a rod or chain, i. e. the models show one or two arms, respectively. Several cases were studied, varying the number of chain beads N = 10, 20, 30, … 60 (with radius σ ≤ 1/2 and bond length b = 1) and the radius of the sphere R = 1, 2, 4, 8 (in units of b). For the flexible models the position of the chain beads have been obtained randomly from Monte Carlo simulations. For these models we have made also a statistical treatment in order to obtain averaged values of the conformational and hydrodynamic properties. Finally, we conducted a comparison of our theoretical results with the experimental data for nucleosomes. The overall agreement is good and gives confidence in the applicability of our results to similar macromolecular complexes.
Additional Material:
1 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/macp.1991.021920416
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