Impact of crowders on the morphology of bacterial chromosomes

Amit Kumar; Pinaki Swain; Bela M. Mulder; Debasish Chaudhuri

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arXiv · 1911.03640

Impact of crowders on the morphology of bacterial chromosomes

Amit Kumar·Pinaki Swain·Bela M. Mulder·Debasish Chaudhuri

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Abstract

Inspired by recent experiments on the effects of cytosolic crowders on the organization of bacterial chromosomes, we consider a "feather-boa" type model chromosome in the presence of non-additive crowders, encapsulated within a cylindrical cell. We observe spontaneous emergence of complementary helicity of the confined polymer and crowders. This feature is reproduced within a simplified effective model of the chromosome. This latter model further establishes the occurrence of longitudinal and transverse spatial segregation transitions between the chromosome and crowders upon increasing crowder size.

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Amit Kumar, Pinaki Swain, Bela M. Mulder, Debasish Chaudhuri. 2019-11-09. Impact of crowders on the morphology of bacterial chromosomes. https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03640

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