Mixing and segregation of ring polymers: spatial confinement and molecular crowding effects
- During the life cycle of bacterial cells the non-mixing of the two ring-shaped daughter genomes is an important prerequisite for the cell division process. Mimicking the environments inside highly crowded biological cells, we study the dynamics and statistical behavior of two flexible ring polymers in the presence of cylindrical confinement and crowding molecules. From extensive computer simulations we determine the degree of ring-ring overlap and the number of inter-monomer contacts for varying volume fractions phi of crowders. We also examine the entropic demixing of polymer rings in the presence of mobile crowders and determine the characteristic times of the internal polymer dynamics. Effects of the ring length on ring-ring overlap are also analyzed. In particular, on systematic variation of the fraction of crowding molecules, a (1 - phi)-scaling is found for the ring-ring overlap length along the cylinder axis, and a non-monotonic dependence of the 3D ring-ring contact number with a maximum at phi approximate to 0.2 is obtained.During the life cycle of bacterial cells the non-mixing of the two ring-shaped daughter genomes is an important prerequisite for the cell division process. Mimicking the environments inside highly crowded biological cells, we study the dynamics and statistical behavior of two flexible ring polymers in the presence of cylindrical confinement and crowding molecules. From extensive computer simulations we determine the degree of ring-ring overlap and the number of inter-monomer contacts for varying volume fractions phi of crowders. We also examine the entropic demixing of polymer rings in the presence of mobile crowders and determine the characteristic times of the internal polymer dynamics. Effects of the ring length on ring-ring overlap are also analyzed. In particular, on systematic variation of the fraction of crowding molecules, a (1 - phi)-scaling is found for the ring-ring overlap length along the cylinder axis, and a non-monotonic dependence of the 3D ring-ring contact number with a maximum at phi approximate to 0.2 is obtained. Our results demonstrate that polymer rings are demixed and separated by particular entropy-favourable partitioning of crowders along the axis of the cylindrical simulation box. These findings help to rationalize the implications of macromolecular crowding for circular DNA molecules in confined spaces inside bacteria as well as in localized cellular compartments inside eukaryotic cells.…
Author details: | Jaeoh Shin, Andrey G. CherstvyORCiDGND, Ralf MetzlerORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/5/053047 |
ISSN: | 1367-2630 |
Title of parent work (English): | New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics |
Publisher: | IOP Publ. Ltd. |
Place of publishing: | Bristol |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2014 |
Publication year: | 2014 |
Release date: | 2017/03/27 |
Tag: | confinement; crowding; polymers |
Volume: | 16 |
Number of pages: | 19 |
Funding institution: | Academy of Finland; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [CH 707/5-1]; German Federal Ministry for Education and Research |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access |