DNA flexibility on short length scales probed by atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Unusually high bending flexibility has been recently reported for DNA on short length scales. We use atomic force microscopy (AFM) in solution to obtain a direct estimate of DNA bending statistics for scales down to one helical turn. It appears that DNA behaves as a Gaussian chain and is well described by the worm-like chain model at length scales beyond 3 helical turns (10.5nm). Below this threshold, the AFM data exhibit growing noise because of experimental limitations. This noise may hide small deviations from the Gaussian behavior, but they can hardly be significant.

5 pages, 5 figures; to appear in PRL

References in corpus (2)

• The Worm-Like Chain Theory And Bending Of Short DNA
• Microscopic mechanism for experimentally observed anomalous elasticity of DNA in 2D

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