Nonuniform Donnan Equilibrium within Bacteriophages Packed with Dna
Abstract
The curvature stress of DNA packed inside a phage is balanced against its electrostatic self-interaction. The DNA density is supposed nonuniform and as a result the Donnan effect is also inhomogeneous. The coarse-grained DNA density is a nonlinear function of the DNA radius of curvature at a given position inside the bacteriophage. It turns out that a region (or regions) exists totally free from DNA. The size of such holes is computed.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- April 2003
- arXiv:
- arXiv:cond-mat/0304140
- Bibcode:
- 2003cond.mat..4140O
- Keywords:
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- Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter;
- Quantitative Biology
- E-Print:
- 11 pages, 2 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Chem. B (special Polyelectrolytes issue)