Conformation of Circular DNA in 2 Dimensions

Abstract

The conformation of circular DNA molecules of various lengths adsorbed in a 2D conformation on a mica surface is studied. The results confirm the conjecture that the critical exponent $\nu$ is topologically invariant and equal to the SAW value (in the present case $\nu =3/4$), and that the topology and dimensionality of the system strongly influences the cross-over between the rigid regime and the self-avoiding regime at a scale $L\approx 8{\ell }_p$. Additionally, the bond correlation function scales with the molecular length $L$ as predicted. For molecular lengths $L\le 5{\ell }_p$, circular DNA behaves like a stiff molecule with approximately elliptic shape.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Radial distribution function of semiflexible polymers
• Critical exponents for random knots
• Scaling exponents and probability distributions of DNA end-to-end distance
• Fractal Dimension and Localization of DNA Knots
• Shapes of Semiflexible Polymer Rings
• Average size of random polygons with fixed knot topology

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Polymers with spatial or topological constraints: theoretical and computational results
• Numerical study of linear and circular model DNA chains confined in a slit: metric and topological properties
• Structure and dynamics of ring polymers: entanglement effects because of solution density and ring topology
• Buckling of stiff polymer rings in weak spherical confinement
• Excluded volume effects on semiflexible ring polymers
• Anomalous Structure and Scaling of Ring Polymer Brushes
• Self-avoiding walks and connective constants in clustered scale-free networks
• Fluctuations of ring polymers
• Twist neutrality, a zero sum rule for oriented closed space curves with applications to circular DNA
• Energy localization and shape transformations in semiflexible polymer rings