The Role of Chain Entropy in an Analytic Model of Protein Binding in Single-DNA Stretching Experiments

TL;DR

This paper enhances an existing analytical model of protein binding in single-DNA stretching experiments by incorporating chain entropy, resulting in improved accuracy and better alignment with experimental data.

Contribution

The authors improve Zhang and Marko's model by including zero-force chain entropy, making it more accurate and experimentally relevant.

Findings

Enhanced model aligns well with discrete persistent-chain simulations.

Inclusion of chain entropy improves experimental data analysis.

Model remains analytically simple and convenient for data fitting.

Abstract

We show that the simple analytical model proposed by Zhang and Marko (Phys. Rev. E 77, 031916 (2008)) to illustrate Maxwell relations for single-DNA experiments can be improved by including the zero-force entropy of a Gaussian chain. The resulting model is in excellent agreement with the discrete persistent-chain model and is in a form convenient for analyzing experimental data.