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Nonuniform Donnan Equilibrium within Bacteriophages Packed with Dna

Theo Odijk·Flodder Slok
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Abstract

The curvature stress of DNA packed inside a phage is balanced against its electrostatic self-interaction. The DNA density is supposed nonuniform and as a result the Donnan effect is also inhomogeneous. The coarse-grained DNA density is a nonlinear function of the DNA radius of curvature at a given position inside the bacteriophage. It turns out that a region (or regions) exists totally free from DNA. The size of such holes is computed.

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Theo Odijk, Flodder Slok. 2003-04-06. Nonuniform Donnan Equilibrium within Bacteriophages Packed with Dna. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0304140

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