How molecular knots can pass through each other.

Trefz, Benjamin; Siebert, Jonathan; Virnau, Peter · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We propose a mechanism in which two molecular knots pass through each other and swap positions along a polymer strand. Associated free energy barriers in our simulations only amount to a few kBT, which may enable the interchange of knots on a single DNA strand.

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