Variety of Scaling Laws for DNA Thermal Denaturation

Abstract

We discuss possible mechanisms that may impact the order of the transition between denaturated and bound DNA states and lead to changes in the scaling laws that govern conformational properties of DNA strands. To this end, we re-consider the Poland-Scheraga model and apply a polymer field theory approach to calculate entropic exponents associated with the denaturated loop distribution. We discuss in particular variants of this transition that may occur due to the properties of the solution and may affect the self- and mutual interaction of both single and double strands. We find that the effects studied significantly influence the strength of the first order transition. This is manifest in particular by the changes in the scaling laws that govern DNA loop and strand distribution. As a quantitative measure of these changes we present the values of corresponding scaling exponents. For the $d=4-\epsilon$ case we get corresponding ${\epsilon }^4$ expansions and evaluate the perturbation theory expansions at space dimension $d=3$ by means of resummation technique.

arXiv commentPaper has been accepted for publication in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications Special Issue "Interdisciplinary applications of statistical physics" - in memory of Professor Dietrich Stauffer

References in corpus (16)

• Why is the DNA Denaturation Transition First Order?
• Roles of stiffness and excluded volume in DNA denaturation
• Reparametrizing loop entropy weights: Effect on DNA melting curves
• High-precision estimate of the hydrodynamic radius for self-avoiding walks
• Fractal dimensions of self-avoiding walks and Ising high-temperature graphs in 3D conformal bootstrap
• Poland-Scheraga models and the DNA denaturation transition
• Copolymer Networks and Stars: Scaling Exponents
• About the relevance of the fixed dimension perturbative approach to frustrated magnets in two and three dimensions
• Copolymer Networks: Multifractal dimension spectra in polymer field theory
• Scaling in DNA unzipping models: denaturated loops and end-segments as branches of a block copolymer network
• Multifractality of Brownian motion near absorbing polymers
• Operator Product Expansion on a Fractal: The Short Chain Expansion for Polymer Networks
• Fixed points in frustrated magnets revisited
• How nanochannel confinement affects the DNA melting transition within the Poland-Scheraga model
• Scaling of star polymers: high order results
• Unbinding of mutually avoiding random walks and two dimensional quantum gravity

Cited by in corpus (2)

• 100 Glorious Years of the Ising Model
• DNA thermal denaturation by polymer field theory approach: effects of the environment