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Diffusion mechanisms of localised knots along a polymer

Metzler, R. ; Reisner, W. ; Riehn, R. ; Austin, R. ; Tegenfeldt, Jonas LU orcid and Sokolov, I. M. (2006) In Europhysics Letters 76(4). p.696-702
Abstract
We consider the diffusive motion of a localised knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of the entire chain between either end and the knot position, during which the knot is provided with free volume, leads to an L-3 scaling of diffusion time; for sufficiently long chains, subdiffusion will enhance this time even more. Conversely, we propose local "breathing", i.e., local conformational rearrangement inside the knot region (KR) and its immediate neighbourhood, as additional mechanism. The contribution of KR-breathing to the diffusion time scales only quadratically, similar to L-2, speeding up... (More)
We consider the diffusive motion of a localised knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of the entire chain between either end and the knot position, during which the knot is provided with free volume, leads to an L-3 scaling of diffusion time; for sufficiently long chains, subdiffusion will enhance this time even more. Conversely, we propose local "breathing", i.e., local conformational rearrangement inside the knot region (KR) and its immediate neighbourhood, as additional mechanism. The contribution of KR-breathing to the diffusion time scales only quadratically, similar to L-2, speeding up the knot escape considerably and guaranteeing finite knot mobility even for very long chains. (Less)
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author
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Europhysics Letters
volume
76
issue
4
pages
696 - 702
publisher
EDP Sciences
external identifiers
  • wos:000242210900024
  • scopus:33751211854
ISSN
0295-5075
DOI
10.1209/epl/i2006-10312-5
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
831d4db5-e469-4bc3-9fd1-d869553f7bb3 (old id 376602)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 11:36:35
date last changed
2022-03-05 03:46:17
@article{831d4db5-e469-4bc3-9fd1-d869553f7bb3,
  abstract     = {{We consider the diffusive motion of a localised knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of the entire chain between either end and the knot position, during which the knot is provided with free volume, leads to an L-3 scaling of diffusion time; for sufficiently long chains, subdiffusion will enhance this time even more. Conversely, we propose local "breathing", i.e., local conformational rearrangement inside the knot region (KR) and its immediate neighbourhood, as additional mechanism. The contribution of KR-breathing to the diffusion time scales only quadratically, similar to L-2, speeding up the knot escape considerably and guaranteeing finite knot mobility even for very long chains.}},
  author       = {{Metzler, R. and Reisner, W. and Riehn, R. and Austin, R. and Tegenfeldt, Jonas and Sokolov, I. M.}},
  issn         = {{0295-5075}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{696--702}},
  publisher    = {{EDP Sciences}},
  series       = {{Europhysics Letters}},
  title        = {{Diffusion mechanisms of localised knots along a polymer}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2006-10312-5}},
  doi          = {{10.1209/epl/i2006-10312-5}},
  volume       = {{76}},
  year         = {{2006}},
}