Advertisement
Published in:
2009 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Conformational Statistics of Dna and Diffusion Equations on The Euclidean Group
Author : Gregory S. Chirikjian
Published in: Mathematics of DNA Structure, Function and Interactions
Publisher: Springer New York
Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.
Select sections of text to find matching patents with Artificial Intelligence. powered by
Select sections of text to find additional relevant content using AI-assisted search. powered by
Semi-flexible (or wormlike) polymer chains such as DNA possess bending and torsional stiffness. Given a semi-flexible polymer structure that is subjected to Brownian motion forcing, the distribution of relative positions and orientations visited by the distal end of the chain relative to its proximal end provides important information about the molecule that can be linked to experimental observations. This probability density of end-to-end position and orientation can be obtained by solving a Fokker-Planck equation that describes a diffusion process on the Euclidean motion group. In this paper, methods for solving this diffusion equation are reviewed. The techniques presented are valid for chains of up to several persistence lengths in open environments, where the effects of excluded volume can be neglected.