Dynamics of DNA Squeezed Inside a Nanochannel via a Sliding Gasket

We use Brownian dynamics (BD) simulation of a coarse-grained (CG) bead-spring model of DNA to study the nonequilibrim dynamics of a single DNA molecule confined inside a rectangular nanochannel being squeezed with a sliding gasket piston or “nanodozer”. From our simulations we extract the nonequilib...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Aiqun Huang, Walter Reisner, Aniket Bhattacharya
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-09-01
Series:Polymers
Subjects:
DNA
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/8/10/352
Description
Summary:We use Brownian dynamics (BD) simulation of a coarse-grained (CG) bead-spring model of DNA to study the nonequilibrim dynamics of a single DNA molecule confined inside a rectangular nanochannel being squeezed with a sliding gasket piston or “nanodozer”. From our simulations we extract the nonequilibrim density profile c ( x , t ) of the squeezed molecule along the channel axis (x-coordinate) and then analyze the non-equilibrium profile using a recently introduced phenomenological Nonlinear Partial Differential Equation (NPDE) model. Since the NPDE approach also fits the experimental results well and is numerically efficient to implement, the combined BD + NPDE methods can be a powerful approach to analyze details of the confined molecular dynamics. In particular, the overall excellent agreement between the two complementary sets of data provides a strategy for carrying out large scale simulation on semi-flexible biopolymers in confinement at biologically relevant length scales.
ISSN:2073-4360