Soliton-like base pair opening in a helicoidal DNA: An analogy with helimagnet and cholesterics

TL;DR

This paper models DNA dynamics using a sine-Gordon equation inspired by helimagnet and cholesteric liquid crystal structures, revealing soliton solutions that depict wide base pair openings influenced by DNA's helicity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel helical structure-based model for DNA dynamics, linking it to integrable systems and soliton solutions, enhancing understanding of base pair openings.

Findings

Sine-Gordon equation governs DNA base pair dynamics.

Helicity causes length scale variation in base pair openings.

Soliton solutions represent wide base pair openings.

Abstract

We propose a model for DNA dynamics by introducing the helical structure through twist deformation in analogy with the structure of helimagnet and cholesteric liquid crystal system. The dynamics in this case is found to be governed by the completely integrable sine-Gordon equation which admits kink-antikink solitons with increased width representing a wide base pair opening configuration in DNA. The results show that the helicity introduces a length scale variation and thus provides a better representation of the base pair opening in DNA.