Compressive response and helix formation of a semi flexible polymer confined in a nanochannel

Abstract

Configurations of a single semiflexible polymer is studied when it is pushed into a nanochannel in the case where the polymer persistence length $l_p$ is much longer than the channel diameter $D$, i.e. $l_p/D\gg 1$. Using numerical simulations, we show that the polymer undergoes a sequence of recurring structural transitions upon longitudinal compression, i.e. random deflection along the channel, helix going around the channel wall, double-fold random deflection, double-fold helix, etc. We find that the helix transition can be understood as buckling of deflection segments, and the initial helix formation takes place at very small compression with no appreciable weak compression regime of the random deflection polymer.

6 Pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Scaling theory of DNA confined in nanochannels and nanoslits
• Compression and stretching of a self-avoiding chain in cylindrical nanopores
• Semiflexible Polymer Confined in Closed Spaces
• Conformations of confined biopolymers
• Scaling regimes of a semi-flexible polymer in a rectangular channel
• DNA confined in a two-dimensional strip geometry

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Polymer translocation into cavities: Effects of confinement geometry, crowding and bending rigidity on the free energy
• Compression-induced continuous phase transition in the buckling of a semiflexible filament for two and three dimensions
• Jamming Crossovers in a Confined Driven Polymer in Solution