Prof. Oleg Krichevsky: DNA as an Exemplary Polymer

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DNA as an Exemplary Polymer

Prof. Oleg Krichevsky

Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

 

DNA differs from synthetic polymers by its relatively high stiffness: thermal fluctuations bend DNA at the scale much larger than the diameter of DNA double helix (while most of the synthetic polymers bend at the monomer scale). I will show that in some experimental situations DNA polymers follow the predictions of the simplest polymer theories. I will focus on our recent measurements of the structure of dilute and semi-dilute DNA solutions. We developed a new approach to study DNA structure and dynamics through a combination of fluorescence labeling and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. We show that DNA behaves as an ideal coil in dilute solutions and as a mean-field polymer in semi-dilute solutions.