Strong fluctuations in DNA Unzipping

• Main Author: Sitichoke Amnuanpol
• Language: English
• Published: Science Faculty of Chiang Mai University 2019
• Subjects: DNA unzipping; force-extension curve; momentum shell renormalization group
• Online Access: http://it.science.cmu.ac.th/ejournal/dl.php?journal_id=6253; http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/66170
• Institution: Chiang Mai University

In a living cell two strands of nucleotides forming a double helix are unbound, in response to enzymatic force, to the independent strands. Such force-induced structural transformation of DNA is studied in the context of phase transition. Fluctuations around a double helix, which is the ground-state energy configuration, are so strong that the mean field description is no longer valid. Treating two strands of nucleotides as the one dimensional continuous entities interacting via a potential, the growth of the helix wavevector under recursion relations, derived by the momentum shell renormalization group, accounts for the rapidly spatial variation of two unbound strands.