{"id":160808,"date":"2023-03-22T18:23:10","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T23:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/breaking-bonds-double-helix-unzipping-reveals-dna-physics"},"modified":"2023-03-22T18:23:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T23:23:10","slug":"breaking-bonds-double-helix-unzipping-reveals-dna-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/breaking-bonds-double-helix-unzipping-reveals-dna-physics","title":{"rendered":"Breaking bonds: Double-helix unzipping reveals DNA physics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/breaking-bonds-double-helix-unzipping-reveals-dna-physics3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Accurately reconstructing how the parts of a complex molecular are held together knowing only how the molecule distorts and breaks up\u2014this was the challenge taken on by a research team led by SISSA\u2019s Cristian Micheletti and recently published on <i>Physical Review Letters.<\/i> In particular, the scientists studied how a DNA double helix unzips when translocated at high velocity through a nanopore, reconstructing fundamental DNA thermodynamic properties from the sole speed of the process.<\/p>\n<p>The translocation of polymers through nanopores has long studied as a fundamental theoretical problem as well as for its several practical ramifications, e.g. for genome sequencing. We recall that the latter involves driving a DNA filament through a pore so narrow that only one of the double-helical strands can pass, while the other strand is left behind. As a result, the translocated DNA <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/double+helix\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">double helix<\/a> will necessarily split and unwind, an effect known as unzipping.<\/p>\n<p>The research team, which also includes Antonio Suma from the University of Bari, first author, and Vincenzo Carnevale from Temple University, used a cluster of computers to simulate the process with different driving forces keeping track of the DNA\u2019s unzipping speed, a type of data that has rarely been studied despite being directly accessible in experiments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Accurately reconstructing how the parts of a complex molecular are held together knowing only how the molecule distorts and breaks up\u2014this was the challenge taken on by a research team led by SISSA\u2019s Cristian Micheletti and recently published on Physical Review Letters. In particular, the scientists studied how a DNA double helix unzips when translocated [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}