TY - JOUR
T1 - Bend-Induced Twist Waves and the Structure of Nucleosomal DNA
AU - Skoruppa, Enrico
AU - Nomidis, Stefanos K.
AU - Marko, John F.
AU - Carlon, Enrico
N1 - Funding Information:
E. S. acknowledges financial support from KU Leuven Grant No. IDO/12/08, and S. N. acknowledges financial support from the Research Funds Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen) Grant No. VITO-FWO 11.59.71.7N. J. M. acknowledges financial support from the Francqui Foundation (Belgium) and from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) through Grants No. R01-GM105847, No. U54-CA193419, and No. U54-DK107980.
PY - 2018/8/21
Y1 - 2018/8/21
N2 - Recent work indicates that twist-bend coupling plays an important role in DNA micromechanics. Here we investigate its effect on bent DNA. We provide an analytical solution of the minimum-energy shape of circular DNA, showing that twist-bend coupling induces sinusoidal twist waves. This solution is in excellent agreement with both coarse-grained simulations of minicircles and nucleosomal DNA data, which is bent and wrapped around histone proteins in a superhelical conformation. Our analysis shows that the observed twist oscillation in nucleosomal DNA, so far attributed to the interaction with the histone proteins, is an intrinsic feature of free bent DNA, and should be observable in other protein-DNA complexes.
AB - Recent work indicates that twist-bend coupling plays an important role in DNA micromechanics. Here we investigate its effect on bent DNA. We provide an analytical solution of the minimum-energy shape of circular DNA, showing that twist-bend coupling induces sinusoidal twist waves. This solution is in excellent agreement with both coarse-grained simulations of minicircles and nucleosomal DNA data, which is bent and wrapped around histone proteins in a superhelical conformation. Our analysis shows that the observed twist oscillation in nucleosomal DNA, so far attributed to the interaction with the histone proteins, is an intrinsic feature of free bent DNA, and should be observable in other protein-DNA complexes.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.088101
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.088101
M3 - Article
C2 - 30192578
AN - SCOPUS:85052241385
VL - 121
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 8
M1 - 088101
ER -