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Photo of Tobias Ambjörnsson

Tobias Ambjörnsson

Senior lecturer

Photo of Tobias Ambjörnsson

Dynamic Approach to DNA Breathing

Author

  • Ralf Metzler
  • Tobias Ambjörnsson

Summary, in English

Even under physiological conditions, the DNA double-helix spontaneously denatures locally, opening up fluctuating, flexible, single-stranded zones called DNA-bubbles. We present a dynamical description of this DNA-bubble breathing in terms of a Fokker-Planck equation for the bubble size, based on the Poland-Scheraga free energy for DNA denaturation. From this description, we can obtain basic quantities such as the lifetime, an important measure for the description of the interaction of a breathing DNA molecule and selectively single-stranded DNA binding proteins. Our approach is consistent with recent single molecule measurements of bubble fluctuation. We also introduce a master equation approach to model DNA breathing, and discuss its differences from the continuous Fokker-Planck description.

Publishing year

2005-12-01

Language

English

Pages

339-350

Publication/Series

Journal of Biological Physics

Volume

31

Issue

3-4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Biophysics
  • Other Physics Topics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0092-0606