Knot-controlled ejection of a polymer from a virus capsid

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the effect of knotting on the ejection of flexible and semiflexible polymers from a spherical, virus-like capsid. The polymer ejection rate is primarily controlled by the knot, which moves to the hole in the capsid and then acts as a ratchet. Polymers with more complex knots eject more slowly and, for large knots, the knot type, and not the flexibility of the polymer, determines the rate of ejection. We discuss the relation of our results to the ejection of DNA from viral capsids and conjecture that this process has the biological advantage of unknotting the DNA before it enters a cell.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Polymer packaging and ejection in viral capsids: shape matters
• Knotting of random ring polymers in confined spaces
• Dynamics of DNA Ejection From Bacteriophage

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• Uniform description of polymer ejection dynamics from capsid with and without hydrodynamics
• Rigidity-induced scale invariance in polymer ejection from capsid
• Scaling behavior of topologically constrained polymer rings in a melt
• Topological disentanglement of linear polymers under tension
• Shepherd Model for Knot-Limited Polymer Ejection from a Capsid
• Knotting of linear DNA in nano-slits and nano-channels: a numerical study