Geometry Selects Highly Designable Structures

By enumerating all sequences of length 20, we study the designability of structures in a two-dimensional Hydrophobic-Polar (HP) lattice model in a wide range of inter-monomer interaction parameters. We find that although the histogram of designability depends on interaction parameters, the set of highly designable structures is invariant. So in the HP lattice model the High Designability should be a purely geometrical feature. Our results suggest two geometrical properties for highly designable structures, they have maximum number of contacts and unique neighborhood vector representation. Also we show that contribution of perfectly stable sequences in designability of structures plays a major role to make them highly designable.Comment: 6 figure, To be appear in JC

A model universe with variable dimension: Expansion as decrumpling

We propose a model universe, in which the dimension of the space is a continuous variable, which can take any real positive number. The dynamics leads to a model in which the universe has no singularity. The difference between our model and the standard Friedman-Robertson-Walker models become effective for times much before the presently accepted age of the universe.Comment: 12 pages, emTeX version 3.0, no figure

Directed motion of C60 on a graphene sheet subjected to a temperature gradient

Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations is used to study the motion of a C60 molecule on a graphene sheet subjected to a temperature gradient. The C60 molecule is actuated and moves along the system while it just randomly dances along the perpendicular direction. Increasing the temperature gradient increases the directed velocity of C60. It is found that the free energy decreases as the C60 molecule moves toward the cold end. The driving mechanism based on the temperature gradient suggests the construction of nanoscale graphene-based motors

Extreme bendability of DNA double helix due to bending asymmetry

Experimental data of the DNA cyclization (J-factor) at short length scales, as a way to study the elastic behavior of tightly bent DNA, exceed the theoretical expectation based on the wormlike chain (WLC) model by several orders of magnitude. Here, we propose that asymmetric bending rigidity of the double helix in the groove direction can be responsible for extreme bendability of DNA at short length scales and it also facilitates DNA loop formation at these lengths. To account for the bending asymmetry, we consider the asymmetric elastic rod (AER) model which has been introduced and parametrized in an earlier study (B. Eslami-Mossallam and M. Ejtehadi, Phys. Rev. E 80, 011919 (2009)). Exploiting a coarse grained representation of DNA molecule at base pair (bp) level, and using the Monte Carlo simulation method in combination with the umbrella sampling technique, we calculate the loop formation probability of DNA in the AER model. We show that, for DNA molecule has a larger J-factor compared to the WLC model which is in excellent agreement with recent experimental data.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure