Evolution Of Nested Folding States In Compression Of A Strongly Confined Semiflexible Chain

Abstract

We use Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations to probe the physics of nonequilibrium polymer compression in extreme nanoconfinement. In our system, modeled on the "nanodozer assay", a gasket translating at a fixed sliding speed impinges on a nanochannel extended chain. In square channels with diameter much smaller than the chain persistence length, we find that chain compression proceeds through a unique folding kinetics driven by repeated double-fold nucleation events and growth of nested folds. We show that the folding kinetics can be understood by coupling a theory for deterministic contour spooling across the folds with a dynamically varying energy landscape for fold nucleation. These findings are critical for understanding compression of nanochannel confined DNA in the sub-persistence length (Odijk) regime.

Publication Date

6-12-2018

Publication Title

Macromolecules

Volume

51

Issue

11

Number of Pages

4012-4022

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.7b02748

Socpus ID

85048487919 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85048487919

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