TY - JOUR
T1 - Tensile elasticity of semiflexible polymers with hinge defects
AU - Benetatos, Panayotis
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Physical Society.
PY - 2017/10/24
Y1 - 2017/10/24
N2 - It has become clear in recent years that the simple uniform wormlike chain model needs to be modified in order to account for more complex behavior which has been observed experimentally in some important biopolymers. For example, the large flexibility of short ds-DNA has been attributed to kink or hinge defects. In this paper, we calculate analytically, within the weak bending approximation, the force-extension relation of a wormlike chain with a permanent hinge defect along its contour. The defect is characterized by its bending energy (which can be zero, in the completely flexible case) and its position along the polymer contour. Besides the bending rigidity of the chain, these are the only parameters which describe our model. We show that a hinge defect causes a significant increase in the differential tensile compliance of a prestressed chain. In the small force limit, a hinge defect significantly increases the entropic elasticity. Our results apply to any pair of semiflexible segments connected by a hinge. As such, they may also be relevant to cytoskeletal filaments (F-actin, microtubules), where one may treat the cross-link connecting two filaments as a hinge defect.
AB - It has become clear in recent years that the simple uniform wormlike chain model needs to be modified in order to account for more complex behavior which has been observed experimentally in some important biopolymers. For example, the large flexibility of short ds-DNA has been attributed to kink or hinge defects. In this paper, we calculate analytically, within the weak bending approximation, the force-extension relation of a wormlike chain with a permanent hinge defect along its contour. The defect is characterized by its bending energy (which can be zero, in the completely flexible case) and its position along the polymer contour. Besides the bending rigidity of the chain, these are the only parameters which describe our model. We show that a hinge defect causes a significant increase in the differential tensile compliance of a prestressed chain. In the small force limit, a hinge defect significantly increases the entropic elasticity. Our results apply to any pair of semiflexible segments connected by a hinge. As such, they may also be relevant to cytoskeletal filaments (F-actin, microtubules), where one may treat the cross-link connecting two filaments as a hinge defect.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85032589454&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevE.96.042502
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevE.96.042502
M3 - Article
C2 - 29347551
AN - SCOPUS:85032589454
SN - 2470-0045
VL - 96
JO - Physical Review E
JF - Physical Review E
IS - 4
M1 - 042502
ER -