Organized condensation of worm-like chains

TL;DR

This paper explores the equilibrium organization of DNA strands around a spherical center, revealing a phase diagram with transitions from wrapping to complex rosette structures, modeled through an exactly solvable statistical mechanics problem.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed phase diagram for DNA organization around spherical centers and maps the melting of rosette structures to an exactly solvable model.

Findings

Identification of a phase transition from wrapping to rosette structures.

Mapping of rosette melting to an exactly solvable one-dimensional problem.

Rich phase diagram with multiple structural states.

Abstract

We present results relevant to the equilibrium organization of DNA strands of arbitrary length interacting with a spherical organizing center, suggestive of DNA-histone complexation in nucleosomes. We obtain a rich phase diagram in which a wrapping state is transformed into a complex multi-leafed, rosette structure as the adhesion energy is reduced. The statistical mechanics of the "melting" of a rosette can be mapped into an exactly soluble one-dimensional many-body problem.