arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 2302.03501cond-mat.soft
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探索DNA介晶的新型液晶相

Towards New Liquid Crystal Phases of DNA mesogens

Kit Gallagher, Jiaming Yu, David A. King, Ren Liu, Erika Eiser

AI总结:

本研究通过oxDNA模拟和粗粒度建模,探究不同核苷酸序列调控下线性DNA构建体的液晶相行为,发现DNA双节棍结构可抑制IN相变,为通过序列设计调控DNA介晶相行为提供了方法。

摘要:

短的、部分互补的单链(ss)DNA链可形成具有多种形状和力学性能的纳米结构。众所周知,半柔性线性双链(ds)DNA会发生各向同性-向列相(IN)转变,且足够弯曲的结构可形成双轴向列相。本文通过数值模拟,探究改变核苷酸序列调节组分DNA力学性能时,线性DNA构建体的相行为如何变化。在所谓的DNA“双节棍”结构中,IN相变可被抑制:该结构由两条刚性dsDNA臂通过足够柔性的间隔基连接而成。本文通过模拟探究不同线性DNA构建体的预期相行为。为此,我们首先使用oxDNA软件包开展数值模拟,探究多种不同DNA寡核苷酸的结构特性。随后利用oxDNA模拟生成的结构信息,构建了棒状、弯核型和双节棍型DNA的更粗粒度模型。这些粗粒度模型被用于探究各类DNA构建体悬浮液的相行为。本文探索的方法使得通过合理选择组分核苷酸序列来“设计”DNA构建体的相行为成为可能。

英文摘要:

Short, partially complementary, single-stranded (ss)DNA strands can form nanostructures with a wide variety of shapes and mechanical properties. It is well known that semiflexible, linear dsDNA can undergo an isotropic to nematic (IN) phase transition and that sufficiently bent structures can form a biaxial nematic phase. Here we use numerical simulations to explore how the phase behaviour of linear DNA constructs changes as we tune the mechanical properties of the constituent DNA by changing the nucleotide sequence. The IN phase transition can be suppressed in so-called DNA 'nunchakus': structures consisting of two rigid dsDNA arms, separated by a sufficiently flexible spacer. In this paper, we use simulations to explore what phase behavior to expect for different linear DNA constructs. To this end, we first performed numerical simulations exploring the structural properties of a number of different DNA oligonucleotides, using the oxDNA package. We then used the structural information generated in the oxDNA simulations to construct more coarse-grained models of the rodlike, bent-core, and nunchaku DNA. These coarse-grained models were used to explore the phase behavior of suspensions of the various DNA constructs. The approach explored in this paper makes it possible to 'design' the phase behavior of DNA constructs by a suitable choice of the constituent nucleotide sequence.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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