Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 10: DNA: supercoils, knots and melting
BP 10.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 15:30–15:45, H43
Distribution of bubble lengths in DNA — •Saul Ares1 and George Kalosakas2 — 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Noethnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany — 2Department of Materials Science, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, Greece
The distribution of bubble lengths in double-stranded DNA is presented for segments of varying GC content, obtained using the Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model at 310 K. We provide an analytical description of the obtained distribution in the whole regime investigated, i.e. up to bubble widths of the order of tens of nanometers. The decay lengths and characteristic exponents of this distribution show two distinct regimes as a function of GC content. The observed distribution is attributed to the anharmonic interactions within base-pairs. Moreover, the same distribution is predicted by the completely independent Poland-Scheraga theory, and thus our results settles a bridge between these two different theoretical descriptions of DNA.