Berlin 2015 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 28: Posters: Biomaterials and Biopolymers
BP 28.4: Poster
Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 14:00–16:00, Poster A
Microrheological characterization of DNA nanotube networks — •Tina Händler1, Carsten Schuldt1,2, Martin Glaser1, Jörg Schnauß1, Josef A. Käs1, and David M. Smith2 — 1University of Leipzig, Soft Matter Physics Division, Leipzig — 2Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Leipzig
Studying the mechanics and dynamics of biopolymers has inspired many ideas and theories in polymer physics. One prominent example is actin, being the best-studied semiflexible polymer. Unfortunately, naturally occurring protein-based biopolymers are limited in their properties such as length, stiffness and interaction strengths. This highlights the advantage of having "programmable" model polymers at hand, which give the opportunity to experimentally test parameters otherwise unavailable in natural systems, and therefore expand theoretical approaches. Nanotubes formed from synthetic DNA strands are an ideal match to this need: they are semiflexible over their typical length scale and can be hybridized to have characteristics such as persistence length which are similar actin filaments or can be varied in a controllable way. We use this model system to measure the mechanical properties and dynamics of entangled networks with microrheological methods. The results can be employed to re-examine theories of semiflexible polymers and provide an insight into the internal structural dynamics of DNA helix tubes.