Regensburg 2004 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 23: Statistical Physics of RNA

DY 23.2: Vortrag

Dienstag, 9. März 2004, 12:00–12:15, H3

Bundle Formation of DNA like polyelectrolytes — •Christian Holm, Hans Jörg Limbach, and Mehmet Sayar — Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz

The physics of attractive interactions among like-charged polyelectrolytes such as biopolymers like DNA and F-actin, as well as synthetic polymers has been an active area of research in recent years. Such attractive forces contradict the expectations of mean field theories. These forces could lead to formation of well-defined nanoscale organizations, and therefore a through understanding of this mechanism is of fundamental importance for design and control of biological and synthetic nanoscale systems. Here, bundle formation in semi-flexible polyelectrolytes with short ranged hydrophobic interactions is studied via molecular dynamics simulations. Bundles with finite radial and axial aggregation number have been observed in experiments conducted on such polyelectrolytes. Coarse grained models are utilized for studying the effect of electrostatics and hydrophobicity on the aggregation behavior of these molecules. A phase diagram is constructed for these molecules, which clearly shows that the interplay of electrostatics and hydrophobicity leads to finite size aggregates.