A fit-less approach to the elasticity of the handles in optical tweezers experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new empirical method to determine the elasticity of DNA handles in optical tweezers experiments, avoiding complex fitting procedures of traditional models.

Contribution

The authors propose a fit-less approach to accurately reproduce handle elasticity, simplifying analysis in optical tweezers experiments.

Findings

The method accurately reproduces force-extension curves.

It bypasses complex non-linear model fitting.

The approach simplifies data analysis in biomolecular experiments.

Abstract

The elastic properties of the double-stranded DNA handles used in optical tweezers experiments on biomolecules are customarily modeled by an extensible worm-like chain model. Fitting such model to experimental data however is no trivial task, as the function depends on four parameters in a highly non-linear fashion. We hereby propose a method to bypass the fitting procedure and obtain an empirical force vs. extension curve that accurately reproduce the elasticity of the handles.